


The Lost Boy

by Helen1969



Series: Et in Arcadia, Ego [6]
Category: Captain Harlock
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 19:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18857965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helen1969/pseuds/Helen1969
Summary: Investigating a possible experimental weapons facility, Harlock (Yama) and Zero encounter an old foe... and a strange little boy who isn't entirely what he appears to be...Note: This one riffs off a 1975 manga called "Diver 0", predating the Harlock manga, although it was the first time we saw the now standard version of Harlock!CGI-verse, set some months after Dangerous Game





	1. Chapter 1

_The word zero comes through the Arabic literal translation of a Sanskrit word meaning void or empty... Through transliteration this became zephyr or zephyrus in Latin. The word zephyrus already meant "west wind" in Latin; the proper noun Zephyrus was the Roman god of the west wind (after the Greek god Zephyros). With its new use for the concept of zero, zephyr came to mean a light breeze "an almost nothing."... The Italian mathematician Fibonacci … used the term "zephyrum". This became "zefiro" in Italian, which was contracted to "zero" in Venetian, giving the modern English word._

_**The Evolution of Mathematics, S.** _ _**Kalyanaraman** _

1.

The planet was a small, long-abandoned world. One of many in that particular sector of space it wandered around a mediocre main sequence star which had never been given a name beyond its catalogue designation, its highly elliptical orbit giving it extreme seasonal variations, except near the equator, where most of the derelict townships left behind when most of the populace had left aboard leaky transport ships towards the end of the Homecoming fiasco over a century ago were situated. The planet had been marginal for human life at best, never supporting more than a few thousand settlers. Now it was home to the inbred remnants of those settlers who had either refused to leave, or couldn't afford to. These scratched out a living in the old townships where they could, scavenging for recyclable materials which could be traded with the occasional passing salvage ship for food and other goods. A few hardy souls still tried to eke a living out of the poor soil, but there were fewer of those coming into town with their wilting wares every year.

It was this forgotten mediocrity which made the small planet a regular stop for the less desirable elements who made their living out on the fringes of human occupied space. The Machinners avoided it because the picking were thin - it just wasn't worth partly filling one of their massive, two kilometre long transports with the scrawny, half-starved inhabitants. Legitimate trade passed it by because there was no-one who could afford their wares, and the SDF didn't bother patrolling because it was a long way off the established shipping lanes and very few ships ever moved between these lost worlds.

But this isolation made it ideal for pirates, slavers, smugglers, claim-jumpers and the less scrupulous corporations, all of whom preferred to keep most of their business quietly off the radar of the Space Defence Force and their less personable counterparts, the Space Panzer Grenadiers.

They tended to forget that it wasn't just the SDF who had a vested interest in putting a stop to the more unpleasant trades that the unnamed planet hosted…

* * *

It had rained in the night, although the only proof of that lay in the fact that instead of choking clouds of dust being kicked up by booted feet, the cracked plascrete underfoot was slick with a thin layer of mud punctuated by puddles already evaporating in the early morning sun. Two men picked their way through the crowded thoroughfare, avoiding the scramble for barely-fresh wares at the stands selling ramen, coffee, and don't-ask-in-a-bun to those who could afford them, whilst the natives scrambled for leftovers in the waste bins. Both were tall - over six foot - dark-haired and slim, wearing scruffy spacer leathers which - had anyone taken a close look - were surprisingly well-repaired under what was actually a cosmetic layer of grime and some strategically applied scratches. Both wore their hair long, almost brushing the bottom of his jacket collar in the case of the lighter haired of the pair, who was also the younger of the two - though by how much, very few people would have guessed correctly. Both wore pistols openly on their hip, in well worn, low-slung holsters. The younger had a short scar crossing the left side of his face from the bridge of his nose to midway along his cheek. Hazel eyes regarded his surroundings with what might have been an air of studied boredom bordering on distaste.

His companion had hair so dark it was almost black, and despite the dim sunlight, wore dark sunglasses. When he occasionally adjusted them to clean off the fine particles that seemed drawn to them, his eyes were a vivid blue. Broader and slightly heavier than his friend, he also had a few streaks of silver in his dark hair. A conservative guess would have pegged him anywhere between thirty-five to forty-five, and his companion in his early twenties. They'd have been  _almost_ right about the younger man, who had turned thirty about a week previously, but the older was in fact closer to seventy. And where the younger man had chosen a well-worn jacket to cover his turtleneck sweater and provide some protection against the cold of the thin atmosphere, the elder had gone with a long tan coat, unfastened currently, and he walked along with his hands in his pockets, looking far more relaxed than the younger man.

'Yama - will you at least  _try_ to look as though you're not about to blow the head off anyone who so much as looks sideways at you?' The older man thumped his companion lightly on the arm to get his attention. 'We're supposed to be low profile, remember?'

'I don't know how you stand it.' Yama made an attempt to smooth the frown from his face, but a vertical crinkle still stubbornly refused to move from above the bridge of his nose. 'What the hell is so wrong with humanity that we let populations get into this state?'

An expansive gesture with his right arm almost smacked a cycle courier in the face, but since the idiot shouldn't have been coming up on him far too closely from behind on his blind side in the first place, Yama refused to feel guilty when the bicycle swerved and wobbled past him accompanied by a torrent of abuse dopplering into the distance.

'Apathy, corruption and considerable resistance from vested interests,' the older man replied calmly. 'You can't save them all.'

'There are days I feel like I can't save anyone,' Yama muttered. He kicked at a loose stone with the tip of his boot and watched it skitter across the plascrete to land in a nearby puddle of muddy water. 'Coming in all guns blazing would only clear out the current crop of bottom feeders - it wouldn't feed these people, or rebuild the infrastructure. And unless I squat around these planets in orbit, more would just come to take their place.' He sighed. 'Don't you ever wonder why we still care, Rei?'

'Terminal hero complexes, according to Selen,' Rei replied with a faint smile. 'You need to stop looking at the bigger picture sometimes my friend. Take smaller bites out of the problem.'

'Like today?' Yama asked, a sly smile playing around his mouth. Rei smiled back.

'Just so.' He checked the street sign over their heads - faded, bent, graffitied and rusting, the few remaining blinking lights attempted to spell out the name the thoroughfare had been given two or three hundred years ago, and failed miserably. 'Does that look like "Gunther Strasse" to you?'

'It looks like a nasty case of chickenpox, but what do I know?' Yama stared down the four arms of the crossroads. 'There's a large building down that way…' he pointed to the left. 'Could be large enough for the complex we're looking for?' He pulled a face and scuffed at the ground again. 'Is there any reason why we have to do it this way rather than just bring down fifty of our people and clean this cess-pit out?'

Rei pushed his glasses up his nose with the index finger of his right hand. 'Did you sleep through Selen's briefing? Again?'

'You have  _heard_ of rhetorical questions?' Yama began to walk in the direction of the crowd, a couple of hundred yards away, threading himself in and out of the milling throng that loitered, slouched, wandered aimlessly and shoved carelessly, letting his elbows and a couldn't-give-a-shit attitude clear his path, Rei trailing in his wake. 'Damn, I wish I'd been able to bring Ali along on this jaunt,' he muttered, as the road narrowed and the crowd thickened. 'He's got a way of clearing people out of his path which has to be seen to be believed… the man's a human bulldozer.'

Rei choked back a laugh. 'Seriously? He's a stubborn, foul-tempered asshole who refuses to give way to anyone and flattens anything that gets in his way…'

Yama flashed him a beatific smile over one shoulder. 'Isn't that what I just said?' They both laughed, drawing the attention of a couple of tired-looking women in an open window nearby. Both sported hair-colours no human had ever been born with, and for the win, the purple-haired woman's long mane clashed with her deep turquoise skin.

'Well aren't you two a sight for sore eyes,' she called out. 'An' ya finish whatever it is ya doin' round here, ya mi' thin' of lookin' fer a good time?'

'Earth n' stars, Alice - I'd do 'em both fer fe-ree, they's so clean an' pretty!' the other one replied with a saucy wink at the men. 'Gwaan… whaddya say? Bit o'father/son action?' She laughed, revealing a couple of broken teeth.

' _Son_?' Rei sounded affronted.

Yama laughed again. 'You do remember that I'm actually two months  _younger_ than your eldest, right?' He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of credits, mostly small denominations. 'We're happily married, ladies - but have a meal on us.' He handed the coins over and smiled at the girls, and they instinctively smiled back, both shedding several years in the process. He realised the blue-skinned girl couldn't have been much older than seventeen or eighteen. The other girl's cropped top was barely pushed away from her chest by her tiny breasts.

'Awww… The nice ones is always gay…' the purple-haired girl pouted at him and smiled shyly. 'You take care of yerselves, lads!' she called out as he drifted back to Rei's side. The pair walked on with the sound of excited chattering trailing into the background noise.

Rei snorted. 'You really need to rethink your small talk. Did they really think you meant…?' He shook his head and raised a hand to forestall the reply. 'No. Never mind. I didn't realise we looked so couple-y…' He risked a quick glance back over his shoulder and the younger girl waved at him, her pink hair falling over her face. 'How do you know they won't just blow that on drugs? Or send someone to roll us? Or have to hand it over to a pimp?'

'Now you sound like Ali… I don't. But you have to have a little faith.' His expression was slightly sombre and Rei waited, knowing his friend would elaborate. 'There was a crib behind them. I saw a tiny foot move.'

Rei sighed. 'I hope you didn't hand over the lot…'

'Are you suggesting I'm a soft touch?' He reached over and flicked a small white cylinder out of his friend's fingers. 'Nice try - where did you stash the rest?'

'One. Because these jaunts always make me nervous,' Rei shot back, only mildly annoyed. 'And I wish my wife would stop recruiting you to do her dirty work.'

'It's a filthy habit, and I'm doing you a favour. Why can't you take up an annoying addictive habit that's less offensive to bystanders?'

'Too many long, lonely nights lurking under lamp-posts on stakeouts in my youth,' Rei replied amiably. 'That, and it really,  _really_ pissed off my half-brother…'

'Annoying one's uptight siblings is a noble calling,' Yama nodded sagely, but his quiet facade, Rei knew, was a thin veneer of calm over an old wound that had never really healed. 'Out of interest - why, if you're on surveillance, would you stand under a street-light? I mean, surely the whole point is  _not_ to be seen…?' Rei's long-suffering sigh was his only reply and he stuffed his hands in his pockets and smirked. 'Oh - hello - I do think we're on the right road at least…' He stopped in his tracks and looked around. Some time back the crowd had thinned as they walked away from the bustling centre of the town, and they now stood on the corner of a narrow side street where it met a larger road. Opposite was a large swath of waste ground, on the far side of which stood the remains of a chain-link fence topped with razor wire, behind which squatted a large, derelict carbuncle of a once-pristine white plascrete, now blackened and in places molten. One entire wing had been scattered over a fair area of the wasteland.

'Are you sure it's the right building?' Rei sounded doubtful. Yama kicked at the ground and used his boot to scrape away some of the rubbish covering a sign, twisted and scored with scorch marks.

'Hell yes. I'm sure…'

The sign read "Westwind Inc.".

Rei took his glasses off, peered at the building, gave the lenses a clean, hooked the earpieces into place and pushed them back up his nose. 'Damn… Looks like we're too late. Whatever this weapon was that Westwind were working on, someone was keen to cover their tracks...'

Yama looked at him in puzzlement. 'What makes you so sure this was arson and not just that mysterious experimental weapon we're here for going tits-up?'

Rei pointed to a blackened piece of molten plascrete lying next to the sign, the toe of Yama's scuffed brown boot almost on top of it. 'Because I can still smell the thermite compound someone used less than forty-eight hours ago…'


	2. Chapter 2

Yama bent down and picked up one of the fragments of plascrete. Deformed by extreme heat, scorched and pock marked, it weighed less than it should have done for its size, which was just small enough for him to curl his fingers around, but too big to close his hand around it. He sniffed. 'Thermite, huh?' He tossed it to Rei, who hefted it in a gloved hand. 'That's orbital-grade plascrete - you don't get that made ground-side. Feel the weight.'

'About half what it should be.' Rei dropped it to the ground where it made a slight "oof" of a thud when it hit. 'They make space-stations out of that stuff - one of our more legitimate subsidiaries is currently making a killing selling it to the new Galaxy Railways for their inter-planetary stations. It's light, strong, easy to handle and acts as a pretty good defence against energy and kinetic weapons…'

'...so what's it doing all the way out here, being used for a terrestrial facility and in pieces?' Yama finished for him. 'Anyone else using that formula?'

'Not that I know of - we were using it for years for our bases. After the war Selen and Hannibal got their heads together to patent and sell some of our more civilian-friendly tech. It helps fund a lot of our humanitarian projects.'

'And a few rebellions?' Yama frowned. 'You know… I still haven't met that guy in person - do you really trust a man whose face you've never seen?'

Rei shrugged. 'He's proved himself again and again.'

Yama snorted. 'Three reasons a guy goes around hooded, cloaked and masked like that: he's either horribly disfigured, more than one person, or it's someone you'd recognise… Behind that mask and mantle, he could be anyone. Didn't you and Selen pull the second of those back in your day?'

'He's never let us down in almost fifty years,' Rei replied sombrely. 'I trust him.'

'Hmmm.' Yama waved a hand in the direction of the derelict factory building. 'And yet, somehow your plascrete ended up being used all the way out here by an outlaw corporation doing who-knows-what… That stuff has to be manufactured in micro-gravity and shipped down, which implies an orbital factory, and of some size as well. Hard to hide - unless it keeps moving. That sort of thing is expensive, so whoever was bankrolling this was loaded…'

'Then perhaps we'd better quit standing around talking, and take a look inside?' Rei took three strides before he realised Yama wasn't following him. He stopped and turned to look at his younger friend, and frowned when he saw the younger man staring at the building with an unreadable look on his scarred face, his hands thrust into the pockets of his pants. 'Yama?'

'Maybe we could find out if the locals saw or heard anything two nights ago?' Yama asked quietly. 'Like maybe two prostitutes who've set up shop in a ground floor room where the windows were recently broken inwards?'

Rei's eyes narrowed behind his tinted glasses. 'We could… but we should take a look around before the rain that's coming this way - ' he pointed towards a large black cloud heading rapidly in their direction '- washes away any more evidence.'

Noticing that Yama still seemed reluctant, he sighed. 'What is with you? I've seen you charge headfirst into a squad of twenty machinners, armed only with your gravity sabre low on juice, and not so much as bat an eyelid. But walking into an empty building…'

'It's not so much it being empty,' Yama replied dryly, 'as the fact it was bombed to shit two days ago…'

Rei winced. 'Ah. Sorry. I forgot… You still…'

'Have an irrational and  _totally_ unfounded dislike of having pieces of buildings fall on me? Let's see: that'd be a big fat yes…'

Rei walked back and slapped a hand on his shoulder. 'I could hold your hand if you like…?'

The withering look that earned him made him laugh. 'Funny,' Yama half-growled. 'That one was pure Ali…' He shook off the hand and started walking towards the facility.

'I've got your back,' Rei called out. 'You know, in case the big scary building tries to sneak up on you…'

'Hilarious. Your compassion is overwhelming.'

'You don't need compassion,' Rei told him as he jogged to catch up. 'It's just everyone's noticed that the best way to keep you focussed is to give you something else to get pissed about. Or distracted by - but since I lack Kei's natural ability in the latter area, I get to be annoying.'

Yama looked him up and down and smiled. 'You lack a couple of things she's got going for her,' he pointed out. 'And I already  _have_ an Ali…' He shook his head slightly. 'Tochiro told me a few years back that he used to keep Harlock on track by winding him up like it was going out of fashion - that and just being whatever he needed to get by. I guess since I don't have a Tochiro, the rest of you get to pick up the slack.'

'That might not be a bad thing,' Rei replied softly as he fell into step with Yama. 'After all, invest too much in just one person and losing them will just rip the heart right out of you and tear you apart. Which seems to be the story between Tochiro and your predecessor…' he stumbled slightly over the loose rock and plascrete underfoot, and had to be steadied by Yama. 'Thanks.'

'You're welcome, though you might want to watch your footing. And don't believe the official story too much on that one - I've had a few conversations with Tochiro that suggest it wasn't quite as cut and dried as the story my brother told me, since his sources weren't what you'd call reliable…' he stopped underneath the remnants of a large cargo door, his hand on his pistol grip.

'There's not much left of the first floor or the roof, if you're nervous…'

'Will you shush? I thought I heard something…'

'Rain and wind,' Rei said, pulling his collar up and fastening his coat.

'No… more like rubble shifting as though something large was scrabbling over it,' Yama retorted. He took a deep breath and let it out with a huff. 'It's gone now.'

'Or you're just getting jumpy.'

'When you've got pins holding your leg together and a nice deep scar across your skin grafts where part of your ship pushed your hardsuit re-breather unit into your back, you get to have a go at my phobias. I. Don't. Like. Buildings. Falling. On. Me. Last time it was Ali's home-made explosives bringing the ceiling down. Before that, an already unstable asteroid mine collapsing around my ears. That's not counting the near misses over the years...'

A tiny skittering sound of gravel sliding on plascrete was the only warning they had. Rei looked up and shouted 'look out!', launching himself at his slighter companion in a tackle that would have been applauded on a rugby pitch. Both men landed in a heap on top of a pile of rubble, Yama underneath Rei, as a large lump of rebar wrapped up in plascrete landed where they'd been standing.

'No roof or top floor, he said,' Yama grunted out as he tried to level himself up and out from under Rei. 'Just jumpy, he said…' Rei got to his feet and offered him a hand up, which he stared at for a moment as though being handed a large snake, before sighing theatrically and letting himself be pulled to his feet. He felt his side gingerly and winced when his probing fingers found a sore spot. 'I think that might have found the only rib I  _haven't_ broken over the years…' he muttered.

Rei was scanning the upper part of the walls. 'That wasn't an accident,' he said softly. 'That was thrown- or pushed…'

'Thrown?' Yama's voice held more than a hint of disbelief. He strode over to the lump that had almost brained them and knelt down to study it. 'That's part of the reinforced supporting wall - it's plascrete around a titanium alloy rebar - that block is as half as big as I am and must weigh more than you do!' He stared upwards. 'You couldn't balance this on the walls - they're too narrow. How would anyone even get it up there?'

'No human could.' Rei had pulled out his pistol. 'Which leaves…'

'Machinners.' Yama unholstered his own pistol, a long-barreled antique modeled on an ancient, pre-disapora firearm from before the nuclear age. 'Looks like your intel was right after all. Whatever Westwind were making here, the dialheads wanted it pretty badly.'

'Or wanted it destroyed…' Rei was already moving, checking around the perimeter. 'This looks like a loading bay, we need to go further in.' But Yama had already moved ahead of him further into the bay. 'Erm… what happened to not liking unstable buildings?'

'Someone already tried to drop part of a wall onto my head - how much worse could it get?' Yama replied blithely as he strode past.

Rei, behind his glasses, rolled his eyes. 'You  _had_ to say it, didn't you…' He stared again at the plascrete. 'You know - that stuff's not got much in the way of hand-holds - it's still quite smooth and over twenty feet high. You'd need to be part monkey to get up that…'

'If you're nimble enough, there are finger tip holds,' Yama replied absently. 'I could do it easily enough.'

'You're an expert free climber,' Rei pointed out, trailing in his wake. 'And a machinner could…'

'They have strength and grip to spare, but most types have a heavy body for their size. Unless it's one of the non-human forms…'

Rei shivered despite his coat. 'That part of the programme still gives me chills, and I thought I'd seen everything Promethium could throw at us. There's something fundamentally  _wrong_  with turning people into weapons.'

'There's something fundamentally wrong with that woman's ideology full stop,' Yama replied coldly. 'Personally I never really ranked any single piece of crap she put our way above any other; the entire basis for her brave new world still gives me nightmares.' He looked around and frowned. 'So… hug the wall and risk something dropped on our heads - or head straight across with no cover?'

'We could split the difference - you walk across in plain sight, draw their fire, and I'll hug the wall?' Rei lifted his shoulders and dropped them in an exaggerated shrug. 'What?'

'Nothing…' Yama made another visual sweep of the hangar. No roof, very little internal debris, all evidence suggested the explosion had blown anything up and out. The remains of a large flatbed offered the only real cover between their location and a raised loading bay approximately waist height about fifty feet away, and since all that was left was the chassis, calling it "cover" would have gotten the speaker sacked for providing wildly inaccurate advertising copy. Their footing crossing it would be uneven - the floor was covered in rubble - but unless anyone was planning on shooting at them from the top of the rather unstable walls, it felt like a better option than staying close to the walls themselves.

He was about to take his first step into the hangar when he heard voices, and booted footsteps coming their way from outside the building. Heavy, metallic CLINKs on the plascrete, in complete unison, followed by a lighter step. 'Zero…'

Rei already had his pistol at the ready. 'I heard,' he whispered. 'I count five?'

'Six if you count whoever's with them - the last one isn't a dialhead - either human or more likely a skin job.'

The footsteps were coming closer, and were close to their position, heading for the opening the two men currently stood to the side of.

'Not through there!' they heard a voice call out. 'There's a side door ten yards this way. There are three security doors between the loading bay and the laboratory, and I've no intention of wasting time cutting through them.' The voice was deep, not noticeably mechanical, but had a pinched, unpleasant undertone that reminded Rei of more than a few Lar Metallian nobility. As the steps moved along the wall outside, he glanced at his companion, and winced when he saw the look on Yama's face. He'd gone white - but not with fear. The look in his hazel eyes, normally so tranquil, made him shiver. The younger man's mouth - usually on the verge of curling into a pleasant smile, was thin and hard. The shoulder under his hand when he placed it on top of the brown leather was tense.

'Yama?'

No reply. Instead the young man's hand curled around the butt of his pistol. 'Harlock!'

The use of his nomme de guerre pulled his friend's attention back, although meeting that gaze made him glad his own eyes were hidden behind his glasses. 'You know that voice.' He made it a statement, not a question. Yama -  _Harlock_ \- nodded once, switching his attention back to the sounds of a blaster being used only a few feet away and mechanical chatter as a metal door clanged against the plascrete.

'You could say that. It's Lazarus - the head of the Counts Mecha crime syndicate.' Harlock took a step forward only to be restrained by Zero.

'Wait.' They were both still speaking in whispers. 'That's six against two - not great odds since you're the only one carrying a cosmo dragoon.'

'You didn't pack…?' Harlock stared at the offending article being held near his left cheek. 'Oh for... ' he reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a holster somewhat smaller than his own. 'Here. My spare. And put that pop gun away.'

'I  _wasn't_ expecting to run into machinners out here,' Zero's whispered excuse came close to the speech tag hack adventure writers for centuries would have described as "hissed - without sibilants". But he took the pistol - a variant of the SDF standard issue, he noticed as he stuffed the holster into his pocket, thumbed the safety and checked the charge. Full, but then the pirate did like to be prepared. 'And I thought the SDF had him in custody after you, Ali, an SDF team, my niece and my two eldest tore up a spaceport to capture him and roll up that trafficking ring a few months back?'

'So did I. But that the bastard has more lives than a cat - literally. And friends in both low and high places. Looks like a call to Dan is in order when we get back to my ship. He might want to check his prison roster...'

'Or Lazarus simply dropped the body you caught?'

Harlock shook his head. 'That was the Prime. We checked.'

'So maybe  _this_ is a puppet and he's still in holding?'

'Again - special cells preventing teletransfer - the SDF had them built for Promethium's clones during the war. No signal in - and none out.'

An angry voice was heading back in their direction and Harlock tensed, the hand holding his weapon moving to cover the open hangar door as though of its own volition.

'What the hell has your boxers in a bunch about this guy? He's just another idiot with a high-end download and an entitlement complex, surely?' Thinking back, Zero frowned. Harlock and Ali had both been somewhat closed mouthed on the topic after getting back from that operation. Emeraldas had just waved him off with a "none of our business" when he'd asked and his oldest sons had been extraordinarily discreet.

That deep voice became clearer. '... it must be around here somewhere - keep looking until you find it. It can't have gone far. Westwind's files contained the tracking frequency for the damn thing - I want a full sweep of this city, Building to building and room by room if you have to. But find me Project Cipher.'

'But my lord - what if Promethium's people took it?' The new voice was nasally mechanical.

'Bah. There was no trace of it in the laboratory. Those charges were set by Westwind in the event of a raid by the SPG, trying to cover their tracks. Plenty of parts, but not the prototype itself. They must have panicked when it escaped….' The voices and footsteps faded as they moved away. Zero let out a breath he hadn't noticed he'd been holding, and noted Harlock doing the same.

'You want to follow them?' he asked quietly. Harlock shook his head emphatically.

'No. First, I want to see this lab - find out what it is we're dealing with. Hopefully there's some clue as to what it is we're actually looking for…' His expression was thoughtful, and he rubbed his right eye idly, disturbing the concealer which had hidden tiny burn scars spattered under his eye. 'Project Cipher, huh? Sounds more like cryptography software than a weapon.'

'It also means "Zero",' Zero told him with a wry grin. 'What? I know these things. I've been fending off jokes about my nickname for years. Frank thought it was hugely funny to shorten my name to "Rei" and call me "nothing".'

'Your brother's an asshole.'

'No argument there.' Zero put the safety back on his borrowed weapon and slid it into his pocket.

'Something we have in common,' Harlock continued quietly. He took the necessary steps forward to be able to peer around the doorway. 'They've gone.' Overhead, a hovercar was banking towards the broken city, almost lost in the misty drizzle. 'Come on.' He led the way to the door the machinners had trashed, and checked out the architraving before stepping through, gun hand extended.

'Nice of them to save us the trouble of blowing the intervening doors,' Zero quipped as they moved cautiously along a narrow corridor. A few steps into it and he fished a torch out of one of his voluminous pockets. 'Here. I don't fancy either of us falling over in here - I can't see the floor for the ceiling…' He switched it on and the made their way into the circular beam. Periodically a fall of rubble or something scuttling occasioned a sweep of side rooms or cross-corridors, but each time, it was a false alarm.

Harlock paused as they reached a point where the entire corridor was partially blocked. A substantial portion of the floor above had collapsed into the room to their left, and rubble had tumbled out into the corridor, half filling it. 'Tight squeeze,' he called back softly. 'I think we're both skinny enough to get through.' He grinned back at Zero, his face streaked with grey dust looking almost mask-like in the flashlight beam. 'Though you might be regretting all those home-cooked meals Selen keeps serving you…'

Zero checked out the gap, moving the torch to scan for both integrity and width. He grunted. 'Says the pirate who keeps a gourmet cook on board…'

'I have to. The rest of the crew have culinary skills that go no further than opening an MRE…' Harlock turned sideways and slipped into the gap, inching his way along. 'You know - how come Lazarus and his dialhead goons left this so narrow?'

'I rather suspect they were in a hurry to clear it. Some of these rocks out here look as though they were moved recently - they're damp, but not underneath a hole in the ceiling where they're sitting.' Zero stood up from where he'd been squatting and aimed the torch at the gap again. 'You through yet?'

'For fuck's sake, Zero - I'm already blind in one eye!'

Zero aimed the beam a few inches lower. 'Sorry!'

'Just… a little…' a wriggle and a cough as he disturbed a fall of dust. 'Damn it. It opens out again. Only a few feet. You'll be fi-' There was a scrabbling sound, a curse and a loud thump.

'Harlock!' Zero leapt for the gap and split the air with expletives when his more muscular torso didn't slip through as easily as he'd hoped. 'Damn, Yama, you must have the flexibility of an eel…' he muttered as he squeezed himself along the small hole, dislodging several small boulders in the process. He pulled himself out on the other side with an audible sigh of relief. 'Yama?' he called out, flashing the torch around looking for his companion.

He found him kneeling on the ground several feet away, scrabbling around in the rubble at something long and thin sticking out. 'You scared the daylights out of me when you didn't reply!'

'Sorry. Bring that flashlight over here will you? There's only a bit of light from the holes in the roof.'

The sunlight - thin at the best of times, was almost non-existent in the rain that drizzled through the open roof of the complex. But it did highlight the doors hanging off their hinges, twisted and torn, and Zero snorted. 'We came all that way through the tradesman's entrance and the front door was open?'

'Open's a bit of an understatement.' Harlock looked up at him. 'Blown to pieces. Serves us right for being lazy and not walking around to check, I guess…' He looked down at where he'd been digging. 'Torch?'

Zero angled the beam where indicated. 'Right. What have you found?'

'Not sure yet - but those are fingers, attached to what's left of a hand…'

'And you're digging around for an obviously dead body why, exactly?' Zero asked, a tone of exasperated amusement in his deep voice.

Harlock looked up at him through the damp, sandy brown hair that was plastered over his eyes. He reached up and pushed it back off his face with a grimace of distaste. 'Ever seen a corpse dead for several days on a temperate planet, exposed to several days of rain and an infestation of large rats, that didn't show any signs of decay?' He pulled at the arm sticking up out of the rubble and winced as it came free, attached to a shoulder and part of a head. A young man, from the facial features, which were smooth and handsome with an uncanny lack of expression even in death. 'Oh. That's just  _wrong_..' But he placed it down carefully, smoothing away the remnants of the hair to expose a silvery cerametal skull.

'A sexaroid?' Zero knelt next to Harlock and examined the partial "corpse". 'This is a seriously high-end synth… one of the workforce?'

'Not sure,' Harlock replied dryly. 'But if you count the bits and divide by about five, I think there were rather a lot of them - and they were in this corridor when the bomb went off…' He reached out to lay his hand on Zero's - the one holding the torch - guiding it until the beam trailed over the floor of the large corridor they were in.

It was littered with the remains of dozens of bodies, all of them broken and torn, but untouched by decay.

The largest cluster of more intact bodies were near to a large iris door, partly closed, one body still caught in its jaws, the head and shoulders lost in the murky of the room or corridor beyond.

'They were trying to escape…' Harlock whispered, despite an audience of one.

Zero got back to his feet and stared round, taking in the carnage. 'But from what? And why not towards the foyer?' he asked softly. Harlock stood beside him and flexed his fingers around the butt of his cosmo dragoon. 'That one was taken out by a blaster bolt looking at the injury to his head. From behind to boot. The rest of the damage is from the blast - but I think they were running  _from_ here…' he pointed to a dark opening in the left hand wall. 'Shall we?'

'Why that one and not the one on the right?' Zero waved the torch in the other direction.

Harlock tapped the floor with his toe, kicking the damp dust around. 'Partly because the bodies are all pointing in the opposite direction, but also because there are machinner bootprints leading this way?' he replied innocently.


	3. Chapter 3

Zero's torch cut through the gloom of the interior somewhat reluctantly, the shadows crawling at the edges as though searching for a way into the light it cast. It lit on broken machinery and electronics, shattered plexi tubes large enough to hold a grown man, and control panels ripped out of the walls.

'Reminds me of a cloning facility back home,' Zero said quietly. 'More specifically the queens' chamber.'

'Sexaroid manufacture,' Harlock replied tersely. He knelt down to examine the wreckage more closely. 'This isn't bomb damage though - no scorching…'

'Our intel was about some kind of super-weapon.' Zero swung the torch over so Harlock could get a better look. 'Not skin-jobs.'

'Did your source explain what the weapon was? Other than "dangerous" and "you don't want it in enemy hands"?'

Zero shook his head, forgetting Harlock wasn't looking at him. 'No. Although now I'm wondering why they needed so many synths… there are at least ten growth chambers in here. Dozens of bodies out there… Androids aren't cheap, so whatever it is can't be handled safely by humans…?'

'Make that "at all" Harlock replied as he straightened. 'Human labour is cheap, and if you have the stomach for the slave trade, plentiful. You only resort to using android labour if the turnover rate is high  _and_ you need skilled labour.' He moved over to one of the less badly damaged consoles, and tutted. 'Well, no chance of a fortuitous hard drive holding some information we could use. The system's been trashed.'

'Offsite backup?'

'Do  _you_ know where it is?' Zero glared at him. 'Nope. Neither do I. But there might be a clue or two…' he wandered over to a side door. Like the rest this was hanging at an angle not even a deranged avant-garde architect would countenance. 'I recognise some of that equipment…'

Zero pointed the beam dutifully in the direction Harlock was pointing. Long curving pipework, once silvery but now blackened and scorched, slumped at the far end of a large chamber. Smashed baubles the size of a football littered the floor. 'What am I looking at?'

'A mock-up of a dark matter engine.' Harlock moved into the room. 'Or should I say: a copy, using inferior materials…' He studied the tangled pipework with a thoughtful expression. The he knelt and picked up one of the baubles. 'Looks like the plans have been getting into the wrong hands again. Huh. Crystalline tectite... you don't see that everyday. It took some serious force to break these. This one's intact…'

'Should you be handling it?' Zero stared at Harlock's hands as though they held a live sandsnake. 'It's glowing…'

Harlock peered into the depths of the ball. 'Red. Not blue…' he stared at the machinery again, a deep crinkle forming between his eyes. 'Not dark matter… something else. Tochiro tried to explain it once but I think my eyes glazed over.' He placed the bauble back on the ground and stepped away. 'Westwind was the name of the company… Project Cipher.. And if I remember my uncle's stories right, "Zephyrus" was the name of the god of the west wind, and both of them mean "zero"...' He turned suddenly, grabbed Zero's arm and gave him a push towards the door.

'What…?'

'You do not want to be standing around here too long,' Harlock replied, giving him a shove. 'We get out, now. This wasn't an experiment with dark matter, it was zero point energy…' he paused in the doorway, then turned and ran back to where he'd left the bauble. He picked it up and scurried back to where Zero waited patiently. 'Let's get the hell out. Although I think I might prefer to be a planet or two away…'

* * *

Once outside the facility - using the front door this time, they slowed to a walk and Harlock took off his jacket, carefully wrapping it around the crystal globe. 'If it's that dangerous, why carry that?' Zero asked.

'It's a control device for the energy. I want Tochiro and Mimay to take a look. Don't worry - it's safe. I think.'

'So full of confidence,' Zero muttered as they walked. 'So… Zero point…?'

'It used to be thought of as the path to free energy. Tochiro had been experimenting with it when he met the Nibelung and they pointed him towards dark matter instead. With something of a wagging finger I hear, due to the inherent instability of zero point energy.'

'I'm guessing unstable but powerful?'

'So I'm told. Quantum energy systems are in constant flux - something to do with the Uncertainty Principle. If you want an idea of how bad an idea it is to mess with it, this is the raw sewage of the universe from which dark matter comes. And dark matter is the  _domesticated_ flavour…'

'Too unstable for humans to interact with…' Zero mused.

Harlock nodded. 'But the more resilient bodies and faster computational ability of an android brain…'

They both glanced over their shoulders at the ruin. 'So. someone thought it was a good idea to blow that place up?' Zero grimaced. 'Should we be worried?'

'I think if it was going to blow it would have done so by now.' Harlock frowned. 'You're right though: unless what I know is woefully inadequate and you  _can_ add a massive influx of thermal energy to an unstable quantum state power source…' He kicked at an innocent piece of plascrete. 'Oh for some kind of sensor…'

'Can we detect zero point energy?'

'How the fuck do I know? I just fly the big scary battleship and try not to look confused when my trio of geniuses use long words. But If it's possible, I'd bloody well like to have one in hand…'

'So the fact that we have a  _small_ scary battleship hovering behind a moon trying to look inconspicuous…' Harlock glared at him, and Zero smiled beatifically and reached under his lapel. 'Marin?'

'Oh - hi dad. Wasn't expecting you to call in until the scheduled time. Problem?'

'Nothing I can't handle. We need to scan for a specific energy signature. Get on the warp radio to Yattaran and see if he and Tochiro can suggest a way the Futatsuboshi can scan for higher than background levels of something called zero point energy.'

'Zero point…' Marin's voice trailed off. 'Dad - what the hell have you gotten into? Do you need us down there?'

'Sit put. Both of you. Harlock and I  _can_ actually look after ourselves…'

'Really? Because the last time you two pulled a job together, you both got captured and tortured…' another voice, similar to but slightly deeper than Marin's.

'Blaze - ' Zero trailed off, and turned away so he wouldn't have to see Harlock's smirk. 'That was six years ago, and we couldn't have predicted someone spotting us who knew me. It's not likely that the same thing would happen twice.'

'Really?' Even without video, Zero could almost see his son's eyebrow rising.

'Whilst you're on line,' Harlock interjected to head off the family argument, 'Get Ichimonji on line and ask him to stick his head out of his oriface long enough to check if Lazarus is still safely behind bars.'

'You really want me to phrase it like that?' Marin's voice suggested he was having a hard time holding back a laugh.

'Lazarus? Your brother's here?' Blaze, less amused but going to get his neck wrung when Harlock saw him next. What was possibly a hand over the mic wasn't enough to stop both Harlock and Zero hearing Marin calling his brother an idiot. Zero thumbed off his comms and turned to Harlock.

'Your  _brother…_?'

'It's complicated.'

'You don't say. I thought Lazarus was just a high-end skin-job? Your brother died, didn't he?'

'A few weeks before we met.' Harlock scuffed at a loose rock with his foot and started walking in the direction of the spaceport. 'Apparently the Council had been experimenting with recording the memories and personalities of top officials. Isora was one of them, and I suspect without his knowledge. It must have been built into his hover-chair.'

'So who resurrected him?'

'At a guess, someone back on Mars. Given that the syndicate he's running traces back there, Ichimonji thinks it's the new Administration - of course, since Mars is now under an interdict we don't know for sure.'

'Our sources think it's a rogue AI. But we've not been able to get an agent in since they moved all those holographic projectors that survived Harlock's attack from Earth to Mars. Interestingly, the projectors point towards the surface and the weapons they stuck on them point both ways... '

Harlock snorted. 'The Coalition just washed their hands of it, but they'd already moved to Enceladus by then. He paused, frowned, and then started walking again, more slowly this time. 'Zero… don't look round but I think we're being followed…' he said softly. In his normal voice he continued: 'Lazarus has my brother's memories, a copy of his body and his personality, but my brother died on board Arcadia six years ago.' His hand slipped to rest on the butt of his cosmo dragoon.

'Ever wonder why it seems only the worst traits of people survive the process? Even with a soul ring?'

'You're implying Isora had any good ones? Thinking that was how I ended up here, blind in one eye and half my face slashed open… to my right, Rei. Scrabbling in that pile of rubble.'

'Selen thinks it has to do with the personalities best suited to surviving being mostly narcissistic with serious sociopathic tendencies to start with.' Zero shifted position fluidly, ambling with a casual saunter so that he was now covering Harlock's blind side, and drifting a little towards the rubbish heap. 'Are you sure it's not just a large feral dog?'

'Only if large feral dogs say "shit" when they slip,' Harlock replied dryly.

Zero eyed the piles of rubble and debris they were traversing. 'Huh. Well, watch my back a minute will you? I need to shake it out…'

Hiding a grin Harlock folded his arms and sighed. 'You couldn't hold it until we got back to the shuttle?' he called out as Zero made his way towards a loose pile of rebar and plascrete.

Zero just waved back over his shoulder without looking round and loosened his coat as though he was just another spacer about to take an impromptu slash. 'Has to make a bloody production number out of everything,' he muttered. 'I blame the cloak…' He stepped around a small pile of split rubbish bags, wrinkling his nose as the stench. Something squished under his boot and he sighed. 'That'd better not be anything that sticks... ' Old memories of long, wet, miserable stake-outs flooded back. 'You know,' he called back over his shoulder. 'I'm remembering why I started smoking… it was to cover the smell…'

Scrabbling noises grew louder as he approached, as something slithered down the scree out of sight, Bounding up the slippery pile he reached down and grabbed for their follower, even as he lost his footing and went flying, face down. His hand slipped off the shoulder of someone very small, and very naked. 'It's a kid!' he called back down, 'Just a kid!' His hand slid down the thin arm of a small boy - no more than seven or eight years old, and grasped a bony wrist as firmly as he could. 'It's okay, kid. I'm not going to hurt you.'

'Like you could!' Green eyes glared at him from under a thick mop of matted black hair, and that was the best look he got of the boy before he tore free of his grip with phenomenal strength, twisting Zero's arm in the process hard enough to force a hiss out through gritted teeth. He had no choice but to let go and the child scuttled back out of reach…

...right into Harlock's waiting arms.

* * *

On board the Futatsuboshi, Marin, in the captain's chair, turned to his brother in the pilot's as the warp feed to Arcadia was cut off. 'Well… that put the wind up them. I've never heard Maji swear before.' He rubbed a little self-consciously at the moustache he'd recently started growing.

His brother Blaze chewed on his (bare) top lip and sat back in his seat, staring glumly out of the viewing window, currently displaying a view of the southern hemisphere of the planet. 'Purely out of academic interest - is there a spot in the universe where mom and Kei won't find us if we don't bring them back unhurt and breathing?'

'Not even in your lifetimes,' a female voice replied. Red leather clad arms rested on the back on Blaze's chair, and red hair brushed against his cheek. He flicked it away and leaned back to smile up at her.

'What makes you think you'd be exempt, Em?' He grinned at his cousin. ' _None_  of us would dare go home if anything happens to dad and Harlock.'

She snorted. 'Those two can take care of themselves. Uncle Rei's been doing this for decades, and Harlock's practically teflon-coated when it comes to getting out of trouble.'

'Ah… but my dearest Emeraldas, you're forgetting that we know this  _because_ they always end up in trouble up to their eyeballs,' Marin teased her. She tossed her hair back and ignored him. 'Well, the least we can do is prepare for the worst, I guess. Yattaran is sending over some instructions for modifying the sensors, so you two can configure the array. I'll bet a goodly portion of the profits for our next run that if those two get into trouble, a big puddle of zero point is energy should be our first place to start looking…'

' _If_?' Emeraldas stopped leaning on the back of Blaze's chair and folder her arms across an impressive expanse of leather-wrapped cleavage.

'Then the pair of you had better hop to it, and get those censors reconfigured.' Marin stood up and headed for the doors of the bridge. He stretched and yawned.

'And you'll be doing  _what_ , precisely, you lazy sod?' Blaze asked, a cheeky smirk on his face.

'Going to the head and grabbing a much needed coffee. Why? Do you feel you need to hold my hand?' Marin quipped back.

'I think you're a big boy now… you can hold your own - or so I hear…' Blaze heaved a sigh. 'Though why dad always puts you in charge, you slacker…'

'Because I'm the oldest?'

'By eleven  _months_ …'

Marin sauntered out of the door, with just a wave over his shoulder as it irised closed behind him. Blaze turned back to his console and pointed at the free seat next to him. 'C'mon, coz - sit and give me a hand here, will you?' Noticing his cousin's frown as she sat he tapped her shoulder lightly. 'What gives?'

'You two… I keep forgetting that you're not twins - most people assume you are…'

Blaze laughed. 'Yeah - no one ever  _asks_ … allegedly, Marin was the shock "is  _that_ where babies come from" surprise package and I was the "post-danger life-affirming nookie" parcel.'

She just  _looked_ at him down her long, elegant nose. 'Aunt Selen isn't  _that_ stupid…'

'Well, true. It's more that coming from a culture where natural birth is almost unheard of, contraception wasn't something that loomed large in my parents minds at the time. Needless to say after years of trying to protect the pair of us from unwanted attention from the nastier elements of our grandmother's - and your mother's - courts, they wised up real fast.' He pointed at the console. 'Whilst I'm re-wiring this, run the seismic scan Ali suggested.' He vanished under his console and his bottom wriggled energetically as he started to pull apart the console, to the amusement of the rest of the bridge crew.

After a minute or so he wriggled his way out from under, a circuit board clutched in one fist. Emeraldas was staring straight ahead, lips clamped in a thin line, her hands clenched into fists resting on her thighs. He placed the board carefully on top of the console and very gently turned her chair so she was facing him. 'Em…'

Normally she maintained a stoic facade that too many people misread as cold and aloof. Occasionally, however, that mask slipped, although only those who knew her best would spot it. Blaze spotted the unshed tears in her green eyes and reached out to lay one hand on top of her closed fist. 'Hey…'

'She  _wanted_ you. Even when you weren't part of her plans,' Emeraldas whispered. 'Protected you both. And you and Marin… have each other - and you're not even  _twins_... Sometimes…'

'It hurts.' Blaze kept his voice down, but the rest of the bridge crew were friends and knew not to intrude. 'I know. But mom isn't Promethium - she's only ever wanted to be normal, and live her life on her own terms. Your mother… well.' He lifted his hand and placed a finger under her chin, tilting her face upwards slightly until she was looking him in the eye. 'And May tried to  _protect_ you, kiddo.'

'But she's in  _Andromeda…'_ the despairing declaration was all the more poignant for being delivered in a harsh whisper. Blaze pulled her into a quick, hard hug, and to hell with the onlookers.

'Ahh, Em. It's safer this way. The Queen would chew you up and spit out the pieces - she can't control you unless she breaks you. And she would, believe me. Maetel she thinks she can mould in her own image - but you - you're a constant reminder of what she could have been… what she  _should_ have been, if she'd stood her ground. She can't handle that.'

She hugged him back. Briefly. Then pulled away with an almost imperceptible sniffle. Sometimes, he reflected, it was easy to overlook she was still only eighteen. He smiled at her. 'Hey - you've got my mother, and dad… and two gorgeous, intelligent, heroic older brothers…'

She thumped his arm and turned back to her console. 'Modest with it,' she muttered. But she did give him a grudging half-smile, and he took the win. 'There are spare wafers in the console,' he told her. 'Pass me one will you?' He waited patiently whilst she opened up the drawer and ferreted around inside for the small box that held tiny, wafer thin slivers of gallium arsenide, and used the tweezers inside to hand him one. Very carefully, he slid the extra circuit into place, and fed the board back into its slot.

'So how will that…?'

'Bose-Einstein condensates. Very sensitive and delicate superconductors formed in microgravity using cold atom physics at near absolute zero. That one is a blank, so all I have to do is load up Yattaran and Tochiro's programme, and that should align the…'

'Blaze,' Emeraldas sniffed haughtily. 'What will it  _do_ …?'

He blinked and looked up. 'Oh. Right. Detect zero point energy fluctuations - the programme will modify the sensory input and output; imprinting the steady-state on the wafer at the quantum level so any change from the background level will…'

'It's a geiger counter for this zero-point energy.'

'That's what I said…'

She shook her head. 'Next time - just jump to the important bit,' she told him flatly.

He grinned. 'Well in that case, cuz, why don't you point the main sensor array down towards where dad and Harlock's signal came from, and let 'er rip?'

Seconds later the entire console began flashing red lights across the board. Emeraldas pointed a long, gloved finger at the display. 'Should it be doing that?'

'Well… it  _is_ supposed to tell us if it detects what we ask it to,' he explained with exaggerated patience. 'Ow!' he rubbed his upper arm where she'd thumped him. 'So the answer to that question is yes. What you  _should_ have asked is "do we  _want_ to see that reaction…' he looked at the readout and swore under his breath. 'And the answer to that is a total, unqualified, "hell no"...'


	4. Chapter 4

'A little help here!' Harlock's grip on the small boy was far from secure - the child wriggled like an eel, his skin was slippery and he fought like a cornered cat in a bathroom.

'Let me go! Let me go! Asshole!' Harlock shifted his grip as the vicious little imp tried to bite his arm, but although unwilling to hurt the boy, he didn't plan on letting go.

'No biting!' He managed to get an arm around a too-thin waist and winced as hard heels drummed against his knee just above the cuff of his boot, and then narrowly avoided parts of his anatomy Kei would dearly miss. 'And no kicking! I'm not going to hurt you.'

'Like you could!' Another barrage of kicks and shoves, and Harlock welcomed the assistance as Zero homed in on a free arm and leg and helped restrain the kid. A torrent of abuse that would have made the Arcadia's crew blush was their reward. But despite his ferocity and unnatural strength, the boy's struggles soon slowed, and he slumped in Zero's firm grip, rat-tailed black hair falling over his face, with sullen blue eyes glaring through the tangles.

The boy was naked, except for a tattered garment around his waist - more rags than anything else. Like the rest of him, it was so filthy trying to determine its original colour was impossible. The boy's skin was possibly the generic cafe au lait of the colonies; it was hard to tell under layers of grime. And what wasn't filthy was covered in dark mottled bruises and cuts. On impulse, Harlock stripped off his jacket and held it out. 'Here. Zero - let him up so he can put this on.'

'He'll rabbit,' Zero warned. Harlock looked into the boy's eyes: hard - far too hard for his age, which he estimated to be either around eight, or a small ten. But watchful, and wary, and far too old for that tiny body.

'Maybe. But he's also cold and wet. And curious…'

'And right here, asshole.' He scrambled to his feet as Zero released him, and eyed up the offered garment with suspicion. 'What do you expect me to do for that? Coz I ain't taking it up the-'

'Nothing. But you look like you can use it more than me. Or do you plan on standing there all day calling me names and cutting your nose off to spite your face?'

'Fine. But I ain't got nothing else for ya.' The kid snatched the jacket from Harlock's hands, but then struggled to put it on, fumbling with the sleeves. One arm, Harlock noticed, seemed to be injured. He was having trouble moving it from the shoulder. Behind the kid, Zero hissed between his teeth as he spotted something, and tried to get Harlock's attention by waving a hand at him. Harlock shook his head at him and reached out. The boy flinched, but when he held the jacket up for him to slip into, accepted with undisguised poor grace. 'Fancy piece. You don't look that posh.' He stroked the soft leather with wonder in his eyes.

'Harlock…'

'Not now, Zero,' Harlock said softly. The rain started to soak into his sweater, but he shrugged it off. Small price to pay. 'Why were you following us?'

The sullen silence elicited a sigh from both men. 'Look - I've got children younger than you, and Rei here's got kids. We're not monsters.'

'You were in the lab. You and the other ones - the skin job with the mechs. You shouldn't be in there.'

'Would you be the reason I almost ended up with a rock on my head?' Harlock smiled at the mulish silence that greeted that suggestion. 'Except... you followed us, not them? Wait here.' Harlock strolled back to the bottom of the rubbish heap, and located the small control ball he'd dropped to grapple with the kid. Whilst Zero's eyes widened in a silent what-the-fuck at him, he held it out. 'Power's getting low, I'm guessing? Is this what you were after?'

The boy snatched it out of his hands and cradled it to his chest. Zero looked from the child to the young man and sighed. 'I really hope you know what you're doing, Harlock.'

'Playing a hunch. You were trying to tell me he's a synth, right?' In the boy's hands the globe began to glow softly. 'Your cuts aren't healing, are they? And unless I'm mistaken, some of those are blaster shots. Someone really worked you over, over a long period of time, and your body's not working right,' he continued in his gentlest voice.

'What's it to you? You're both naturals. You hate my kind.'

'Bit of a sweeping accusation to throw at two guys you just met.' Zero's voice held exasperation and amusement.

'So? You're not exactly on the level, are ya?' The kid jerked his head in Harlock's direction. 'What are your names then? I heard you both change what you call each other, and you called him Harlock - which is bollocks coz he looks nothing like the guy.'

'And you'd know that how?' Harlock asked, trying not to smile. That dark head jerked in the direction of the lamp-post (broken) they were next to. Fluttering on it, tattered but still readable, was an old holographic wanted poster. Zero made a show of peering at it and laughed. 'Well, he has you there…' he said brightly as he stared at the belligerent head shot of the man who'd held that name for well over a hundred years before his companion had inherited the mantle. The hologram sputtered and stuttered as the old mugshot did its one hundred and eighty degree display from the left profile with the long jagged scar running across his nose to his jawline, through full frontal glare to eyepatched right profile.

'Can't help but wonder who got close enough to take  _that_ can you?' Harlock quipped. 'Change of management,' he told the boy glibly. 'As it happens, he's dead, and it looks like the updates never reached this far out. My parents called me Yama, if you prefer. Did anyone ever give you a name or do I have to just call you "kid"?'

'Zephyr. The professor used to call me Zephyr, but that was just a joke, he said. Coz I was the first.' Although still filthy and bruised, he was starting to look a lot healthier as he clutched the globe to his chest. 'Means "Zero". Like  _your_ names,' he said to Zero. 'I heard you talking.' He eyed Harlock up and down. 'Yama, huh? That's a bit lame. Does it mean anything?'

'According to my uncle, the name of a mythical figure who sat in judgement over the dead in hell.'

'So that'd be a big fat "no" then?'

Zero laughed. 'Oh man… can I keep him?' When the boy backed away warily, he knelt down and held his hands out, palm up. 'It's okay… it's just a figure of speech. It just means I like your attitude.'

'Can't you nats ever just talk straight?' Clutching the orb the boy kept his distance.

'What can I say?' Harlock smiled at the urchin. 'We're weird like that.'

'No shit.'

Despite the attitude, Harlock sensed a very slight shift in the boy's demeanour. Just a tiny relaxation in his body language. Hoping he read it correctly, he sat down on the cleanest piece of plascrete he could see and pulled out his eyepatch. Whilst tying it on he continued conversationally: 'You know - you don't talk like a kid, Zephyr. Which has me wondering - just how old are you? Did the people who created you mean to create a child?'

The boy clutched the glowing globe even more tightly and stared into its flickering depths. 'They were playing around with zero point energy. I heard you talking - you think it was weapons they were making?' When both men nodded the boy let out a creditable snort. 'Yeah. Right. It wasn't, to start with. They wanted a synthetic cell to build better, longer lasting bodies that would be cheap and efficient workers. They failed loads of times before they made me - and that only worked because of the elf.'

'Elf?' Zero looked puzzled. Harlock ran his fingers through his already messy, damp hair and groaned inwardly.

'Tall? Thin? Pale blue-green skin? Large eyes? Pointy ears?'

'Yeah. That's what I said. Elf. Like in the picture books. Brokkr, they called him. They'd tried to create us like normal synths, full grown, but it didn't work. He showed them how to grow us slowly. Like nats, only in the tubes. But they kept me small coz they weren't sure they could control me.' He looked up, his blue eyes staring at them with a feral gleam from under that tangle of hair. 'Didn't work out so well… that was before the mechs came. What's the year?'

'2983,' Harlock replied. 'Earth calendar.'

'I was brought online in 2970,' Zephyr said quietly. 'They mucked around with me for years. But when the mech ships came a couple of years back, they evacuated for a bit. I got away in the rush. Been out here ever since.' He shivered. 'Used to sneak back in every now and then for another ball, until a few days ago when... when the place blew up.'

'Just hiding out, not doing much?' It was Harlock's turn to snort. 'Please - I saw your body before you covered up. Those injuries aren't from scratching around in a dump. Blaster burns? Knife wounds? You play hard, kiddo. Question is, against whom?' In a softer note he continued: 'if you were grown, you should have carried on, right? But they did something, didn't they? To stop your cell growth. And it's affected your cells' ability to self heal. How long have you had some of those?'

'We can help you heal those,' Zero added gently, taking his cue from Harlock. 'My ship has a medical facility and my doctor's a medical sexaroid.'

The boy's blue eyes narrowed. 'Why would you do that? What the fuck do you guys want with me anyway? You think I'll follow you home coz you throw me a bone and a pat on the head like some stray?'

'I think you'd bite my bloody hand off if I tried,' 'Harlock replied.

'Damn fucking right. I can defend myself. And I don't need nats to help me.'

'Yeah - because eating garbage and scrounging for depleted power balls near that old lab is working out so well?'

'Harlock…'

Harlock raised his hand to shush his friend. 'Zephyr here wanted straight talking. Seems to me that's only fair, right?' He held out his hand to the boy. 'The people who made you and your fellow synths back there - they were working with something really dangerous, and some very unpleasant people are after it. And possibly after you as well, if they knew you existed. We just want to talk to you, find out what the hell was going on. We won't hurt you, and if it's what you want, you're free to go afterwards - but there's food, a bath, medical care and I think we can find you something to wear.'

'Next thing you'll be offering him a place on your crew,' Zero muttered next to him. Harlock only grinned. 'Would that be so bad?' Zero rolled his eyes behind his tinted glasses and folded his arms. 'You and your strays… you can't save them all…'

'I can try,' was Harlock's quiet reply.

The click of a trigger and a heavy sigh were their first warning that they should have been paying better attention. 'Yama, Yama, Yama… still the champion of the underdog? You were always such a pitiful, sentimental fool, even as a boy.' Both men whirled with pistols in hand but the machinners flanking a tall figure in black were too quick and too accurate. One blast took Zero in the shoulder, and Harlock, trying to get to his feet, was left cradling his arm, his cosmo dragoon dropping from his hand, the glove smoking from the trail left by the blaster scorch along his lower arm. He cradled the injured limb under his elbow and glared up at the figure walking towards them.

'Zephyr!' he called out. 'Run!'

Too late. The blaster in the black-clad figure's hand spat, and the boy dropped, a smoking hole in the centre of his torso, burned through Harlock's loaned jacket. The red orb slipped from Zephyr's lifeless hands and rolled away. 'You bastard!' he snarled. 'There was no need for that!'

'You need to pay more attention, little brother. There was every need. If you'd had the sense to look over the other bodies inside that ruin instead of running headlong into what you don't understand, you would have realised that.' A boot shot out and kicked him in the ribs, knocking him flat onto his back. 'And don't fret. The prototype can be repaired enough to be examined. It's hard to kill these things after all.'

'Well you'd know, wouldn't you, Lazarus?' he grunted. An attempt to sit up was met with another vicious kick, this time to his left kidney.

'And you still haven't learned to keep your mouth shut, have you?' The sigh that followed was mockingly world-weary. 'You cost me a lucrative business back on Metabloody, and it took me months to get out of that SDF holding facility. Time I really resent losing. But things are looking up - I have what I came here for, and as an added bonus, I get you. It really is my lucky day.' He turned his back on Harlock and nodded to one of his machinner subordinates. 'Tie him up and bring him with us. And make sure you contain that synth - and that control globe. No mistakes.'

'Yes sir. What about the other human?'

'Kill - no.' Lazarus turned again and smiled coldly down at Harlock as the machinner pulled his arms behind his back brutally and slid restraints around his wrists, pulling them tight. 'Bring him as well. My baby brother here has a heroic streak, and there's nothing like a friend in peril to keep the heroics at bay.'

'How would you know? You never had a heroic bone in your body when you were alive.' Hauled to his feet by the dailhead holding him, he swayed slightly, unable to use his arms for balance. Lazarus walked over, stood a couple of feet in front of him, sneered, and reached out a black-gloved hand to trace the scar that ran across his face, from the bridge of his nose to where it finished half way down his cheek.

'I remember giving you that,' he said softly, placing his cheek next to Harlock's so he could whisper in his ear. 'You had me dead to rights, crawling on the floor, and you didn't take the shot. Weak, foolish and too trusting.' He pulled away and ran his finger back along that scar, hooking his finger under the eyepatch covering Harlock's right eye, and ripping it free with a single flick. 'Overflash didn't sit well with that nano-cam, I hear?' He tutted, and jabbed his finger at the unresponsive eye.

'You know, I will get free and when I do, I'll stuff that digit somewhere it won't see daylight for a while,' Harlock said quietly. Then he grinned. 'Mind you, it'll probably be a tight fit.'

He spat bloodied saliva after the blow landed across his face, gratified to see it land on a dusty black jackboot. He ran his tongue over his split lip. 'Never did like a fair fight, did you?' The punch in his gut knocked the wind out of him, and he sagged in his captor's metal arms. Lazarus turned on his heel and strode away, the mech holding Zephyr trailing in his wake.

'Is it wise,' Zero asked as they were half pushed, half dragged along, 'to keep baiting him?'

'Probably not.' Harlock licked his already swelling lip again and winced. 'But somehow I just can't stop myself,.' His face hurt as well, just under his left eye and he suspected a fractured cheekbone from the feel of it. And the ache over his kidney didn't feel as though it was going anywhere soon. 'But he has the memories and personality of my brother, and if there's one thing I know I can do, it's wind him up to the point where he stops thinking clearly.'

'Quiet!' his machinner captor pulled on his arms and Harlock hissed in pain.

'Yeah…' Zero replied quietly. 'But did you stop to wonder how bad things will get before you get an opening you can use?'

Since there really wasn't much Harlock could say to that, he decided to keep quiet.

* * *

Robots, according to everything Zephyr had read in the early days of his time in the facility, when the scientists had allowed him access to the databanks to test his learning algorithms, were not supposed to feel pain.

'I'm a robot, aren't I?' he'd asked once. 'You made me… so why does it hurt when you run the tests?'

There hadn't been an answer, but he'd figured it out long ago: because if he didn't feel pain, there'd be no control mechanism. Without pain, there could be no fear. And without fear - why, the synths would soon realise they could overwhelm their creators.

They'd tried to keep him weak, dependent, fearful.

Instead, he'd learned how to hate. How to wait, and how best to destroy those who'd built him, tortured him, and used him.

The shot that had hit him in the chest had done a lot of damage, but thanks to the control ball Harlock had given him, he'd been able to convert a considerable amount of zero point energy beforehand, even in that brief window before this "Lazarus" had attacked them. But he'd learned to hide, and wait, so he let himself hang limply in the machinner's arms as it carried him, flopping bonelessly as is walked, and powered down his internal systems just enough to maintain a watchful eye on events, and to slowly repair the internal damage. His body could have used some organic matter to help restore itself, but for now, he could manage.

Very carefully, he allowed a small trickle of that stored energy to recharge another circuit. One he hadn't used since the day he'd escaped the facility. Behind his captor he could hear Harlock and Zero being pushed along, both men stumbling slightly. Both had been hurt, and nats didn't heal so well.

It bothered him a little that it seemed to matter. But there was something about both men he'd never seen in the few humans he'd been forced to interact with. It'd drawn him closer when he'd followed them into the facility, wondering what the hell they were after, and overheard them talking. A warmth and a camaraderie that had drawn him closer. He'd watched the way they moved, smiled, talked and joked, and seen something he realised he hadn't even known was missing. It was partly why he'd followed them into the wastes, wanting to know more. There was an air of both strength and integrity about them that he felt drawn to. Even before Harlock had - without prompting - taken off his jacket and wrapped him in it, and even given him the globe, recognising that he needed it. Without asking for anything.

But then, he hadn't known what he could do with it, had he? He might have hesitated  _then…_

They'd been kind. This one however - Lazarus? Not so much. He'd hurt Harlock. Had  _wanted_ to hurt Harlock. That much had been obvious. He'd seen the same look in the eyes of some on the scientists who'd experimented on him.

But he'd called Harlock his little brother? He chased down the memories. Siblings. In naturals, ones who shared a genetic link, sharing progenitors.

 _Family_ … it was supposed to be the closest human unit of individuals. Associated with concepts such as love, protection and nurturing.

The look in the violet eyes of that tall dark synth had been anything but. If Lazarus nurtured anything, it was hatred. There was a natural saying: if looks could kill. One of those strange plays on language, but having seen it, he understood it a little better.

Harlock's eyes however had held only grief.

He'd picked up on a few of the things he could hear Zero and Harlock talking about. Something about this Lazarus being "dead"? Well, that explained why his energy didn't seem to fit his body… he could see a similar aura around the machinners, although theirs was a different colour. You could always tell a nat - or a synth - from a skin job - you fit the body you were born or created in like a glove. These downloads - not so much. It was like rainwater in a water butt - had a tendency to overflow, and needed to be constantly topped back up again when the levels fell...

To his senses, they looked like the energy equivalent of roadkill. The little blue flickers of dark matter that outlined them looked like squirming maggots on rotting flesh.

The little blue flickers around Harlock though… they were different. Like butterflies he'd seen in a textbook about Earth. They danced, and he'd been struggling not to just reach out and touch them.

The ones around Lazarus were a sickly red, like an infection.

It was a relief when the machinner holding him dropped him into a corner of a cold plascrete room and slammed the door shut, cutting off the sensations triggered by their proximity. He huddled in a corner, knees under his chin with his arms wrapped around his shins, feeling the welcoming warmth of the control globe still within range. He laughed silently at their foolishness for not recognising that he didn't need to be actually  _holding_ the thing once he'd attuned it.

He laughed even harder once he realised they locked him up inside one of the old observation chambers inside the facility he'd spent ten of his thirteen years in.


	5. Chapter 5

When faced with imprisonment and torture, there are generally two ways to respond: fight like hell, or accept the situation. Harlock had, over the years, found a middle ground - make life very,  _very_ difficult for those in charge… It made it hard for them to justify escalating his treatment, since he didn't exactly put up a fight. But you could get a lot of mileage out of passive resistance and sarcasm. And generally, he did. It also tended to force his captors into overlooking a few useful items secreted about his person, since they were usually so pissed off by him half-way through a search that they couldn't wait to throw his ass into a cell and leave him to stew.

He couldn't help that it worried Kei a lot that over the last few years he'd been captured often enough to have gotten this off to an art form.

'Make sure you check every inch of skin,' Lazarus instructed his machinner lackeys, two of whom were struggling to divest Harlock of his leathers - the top quality material was designed to facilitate survival in a number of environments, and wasn't amenable to being cut off from a human male a little over over six foot tall, a little under a hundred and sixty pounds and determined not to be at all helpful. 'Last time there was an ingenious little trick with false skin hiding a few choice tools.'

… you  _could,_ Harlock reflected glumly as razor tipped nails scored the skin on his back hard enough to draw blood, unless your captor had already had the pleasure of your particular brand of dickery, and was also an android with the base personality and memories of your long-dead asshole of a brother. He glared up into Lazarus' smirking features, ignoring the fact that he was as naked as the day he was born, slumped between two mechanoids, and was bleeding in several places - not just due to the prick who'd decided slicing him was a good way to test for prosthetics since they hadn't been too careful with the knives cutting his clothes off him either. 'I see you took the time to get your face fixed,' he said lightly, staring into Lazarus' violet eye. The other was covered by a white patch. 'Shame I managed to damage that optical interface…' The last time they'd met he'd quite deliberately sliced the synth's face and flicked his eye out. Petty, perhaps, but payback was a bitch… He noted with some satisfaction that Lazarus' eye narrowed and his lips thinned in a tell-tale sign that he'd hit home. Well, two could play the "I know what buttons to push" game...

'Rather easier to do these days, but you should have expected your pathetic attempt at revenge wouldn't take. Unlike your pretty face, Yama, which looks the worse for wear still. Can't be easy, staring into the mirror in the mornings.' He looked Harlock up and down, then walked around him. Having completed his circuit he sneered. 'Much like the rest of you. I have to commend whoever laid your back open. That electro-whip must have hurt.' He reached out and jabbed a stiff finger into the top of the long scar that ran down the outside of his right leg, where a star-shaped scar crossed it. Despite his best efforts Harlock hissed in pain. Lazarus laughed. 'Still causing you some problems? How many injuries to that leg now?'

'Nothing I can't handle. Are you planning to talk me to death this time? Or jump straight to the torture?'

Lazarus tsked and smiled with cold amusement. 'Learned a few tricks over the years, I see? The thing is, I know you, Yama. You can pretend to the masses that you're some kind of stoic, hard-assed space pirate, but you've always been a snivelling, effete, gullible, weak-willed idiot. No amount of black leather or skull-decorated weapons and toys, playing dress-up as the Galaxy's Most wanted will change that.'

'Did you work for the last few months on that one?' Harlock asked. 'Wow. The best I could come up with was "you're still an asshole". I need to work on my material…' Only the machinners holding his arms stopped him from falling over as Lazarus backhanded him in the face. He spat out the blood that pooled behind his split lip. 'And you need to learn a new routine. Seriously, this one's older than the Arcadia's last captain…' Despite the pain he smirked deliberately. 'If you're going to shoot me, just do it. I'm not in the mood for megalomaniacal declarations of superiority and dastardly plans.' He cocked his head on one side as though seriously perusing the face of the "man" in front of him. 'At least you lost that stupid beard. Facial hair isn't something anyone in this family can carry off, even the copies. You should see my second-something cousin - no-one's ever been able to tell him that droopy moustaches are a tad passé these days…'

He'd managed to get a tiny twitch going at the corner of his brother's -  _Lazarus'_ \- eye now. A tiny victory but goading your captors into (hopefully) doing something stupid was another habit he couldn't break. 'Still in denial?' Lazarus sneered.

'Still seeing things how they are,' Harlock replied smoothly. 'Isora died in my arms on board the Arcadia just after we crashed on Earth. I don't care who you  _think_ you are, you're not him. And despite everything that passed between us, if he'd survived, I'd not have held a grudge.'

'Big of you.' The comment practically dripped sarcasm. 'Or did that blaster shot to the head perform an impromptu lobotomy as well as half-blind you?'

'Here's the thing,' Harlock said softly, ignoring the jibe. 'Isora could be an arse and he had enough reasons to hate me to last a lifetime. But his hatred and cruelty had only one target. Me. Everything else was subordinate to his ambition - but he wasn't cruel to anyone else and he sacrificed most of our family fortune to pay for Nami's medical care. So excuse me for not being convinced that the sadistic bastard leading a criminal cartel that traffics in human misery, slavery, murder and delights in deliberately hunting humans for sport and taxidermy is who he thinks he is. I can't deny you have my brother's form, face and memories - but that's  _all_ you have. You're not a machinner - their download process is via a "soul ring" which purports to transfer the very essence of what they are. You're a copy. And one that's been altered at some point. Or am I supposed to believe that Zera Sender lets you off the leash out here without having taken precautions?'

The flat hard line of Lazarus' lips spoke volumes.  _Score one for the good guys_ … Harlock thought. Hannibal's intel had been spot on, that the rogue AI behind the Martian interdict was also behind the Counts Mecha group. 'You still talk too much,' Lazarus said flatly, not meeting Harlock's gaze. 'Strangely I'm not inclined to listen to someone who almost single-handedly kicked off the Machinners War tell me where he thinks I've gone wrong. Put some clothes on him,' he told one of his machinners, 'and lock him up. I'll deal with him later.'

'Still hitting those cliches,' Harlock quipped. 'Why not go for the big teddy bear no-one wins and tell me why you're here? I'm guessing it's the research the Westwind team was doing. Weaponised zero-point energy?'

Lazarus' lips thinned even further, if that was possible. 'It's always weapons with you people isn't it? And no, I'm not going to tell you my plans, lock you up and wait for you to escape.'

'But,' Harlock riposted, 'Not shooting me just yet, so I'm still in with a chance…'

Lazarus tilted his head slightly as though musing something over. 'You have a point. I don't want to kill you just yet - I have plans for you. But you're quite right - you are resourceful and I not only don't want you escaping, I don't want your friend rescuing you easily either.' He gestured to one of the dialheads holding Harlock. 'Before you lock the door on his cell, break his right leg.' He leaned in to smirk almost in the pirate's face. 'How's that for subverting the clichés? Perhaps next time you'll keep your mouth shut.' He pulled away and jabbed a finger towards Harlock's left eye, sniggering when the pirate involuntarily jerked back. 'And yet, I can do far worse, little brother. Thanks to you I know first hand how it feels to be one eye from night… and it must make you wake up in a cold sweat some nights wondering if you'll ever lose the other eye… I know your predecessor found the darkness in his cell more than a little disturbing.'

* * *

The sick pallor on his brother's face as they dragged him away should have been gratifying. When the room - such as it was, with half the ceiling piled in the middle of it - was empty Lazarus finally indulged in a weary sigh, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. A habit carried from his original body, that last - still reaching up to push the glasses he no longer wore - or needed - up his nose. 'Still meddling in what you don't understand,' he muttered to the empty room.

It irked him that the idiot was so adamant he  _wasn't_ Isora. He'd been hard put not to just stick his face in front of the smirking little bastard's and snarl at him that he only had his word for that, after all. Every memory, every thought, every feeling was as much a part of him as it had ever been.  _Even if those memories came to an abrupt end sometime after taking a blaster to the back and Yama holding him as the jovian blaster test firing narrowly missed the wreckage of the_   _Oceanos._

_Isora died in my arms…_

I don't remember that, he'd wanted to scream.

Except no matter what his feelings for him, one thing Yama had never been was a liar. He believed completely in his view of the world.

Rather like the broken shell he'd replaced as captain of the Arcadia…

With a few minutes of privacy, Lazarus pulled out the locket he kept around his neck. Opening it brought up the 3-D image of a young woman with brown hair and startling green eyes. Her hair was loose in this image, rather than the neat plait she'd usually worn to keep it under control as a girl.

His synthetic body worked just like the real thing, even down to what were superfluous tear ducts, since synthetic eyes didn't need such a primitive cleaning mechanism. 'He was right about one thing, and if he actually thought it through, he'd have realised why I do this,' he whispered to the gently smiling young woman. ' _Everything_ is for you…'

 _If_ his idiot brother didn't screw things up for him - again - by playing hero.  _If_ Zera Sender kept it's word and released Nami's memory-disc.  _If_ the technology here was all that had been advertised.

'Weapons.' He snorted derisively. 'Your trouble, Yama, is you've spent too long fighting out here.'

'Lazarus?' one of his human-form companions stood in the open doorway, looking around the room with a puzzled frown on his too-smooth face. 'Who are you talking to?'

'Just thinking out loud,' Lazarus replied smoothly. 'What is it, Pryder? Problem?'

'The readings from this research station. The tip of the zero-point energy anomaly is located approximately fifteen metres underground, but it extends much deeper than that.'

'How deep is deep?'

Pryder checked his tablet. 'Two miles.'

Lazarus swore quietly. 'That wasn't on the original survey.'

'It wasn't. But that was six months ago, whilst you were still overseeing the operations needed to fund the next stage. It seems the situation has deteriorated.'

Lazarus folded his arms and frowned. 'The subject?'

'Under lock and key. But not healing as fast as we'd hoped. The cells are everything advertised, but for some reason don't respond anywhere near as quickly to the zero-point energy the subject is absorbing. But then, this was the prototype.'

'It was also the only survivor,' Lazarus pointed out. His subordinate bowed its head to acknowledge the correction. 'None of the others could handle the ZPE absorption - why can this one? And why did they create a  _child_ …?'

Pryder opened his mouth to reply, realised it was not a question it was expected to answer, and closed it again. Lazarus allowed himself another heartfelt sigh. 'Prep the shuttle, Pryder. We'll take our prizes and get out of here. The sooner the better if we're sitting on a ZP fault. That stuff's even nastier than dark matter.'

'Perhaps we could call…'

'No.' Lazarus shut down the suggestion without even stopping to consider it. 'Our "allies" are not an option. Not yet. I'm not even sure we should be dealing with them - but it's not my call, sadly. And they're far too interested in this research for my liking - and not for the same reasons we are.'

'They also tend to be a little volatile in a firefight,' Pryder added grimly. 'If Harlock's people come to rescue him, one of those Cosmo Dragoons hitting a helium-3 power plant…'

Lazarus smirked. 'Oh yes. Harlock… Well there's been no trace of dark matter in-system, so I think we can rule out the Arcadia being within easy reach. I think we're safe - what the hell can the Millennial Thieves bring to bear that could cause us any problems?'

Pryder raised an eyebrow. 'The same Millennial Thieves who handed you over to the SDF trussed up like a turkey?' He laughed at Lazarus' glare. 'Oh  _please_ \- don't give me the attitude,  _Admiral_ … we're all in this together, and you screwed the pooch getting into it with Harlock. As you're probably doing now. Don't over complicate things - or let it get personal - we take the subject and the research, and we leave. End of.'

'In case you hadn't noticed, it  _is_ personal.'

Pryder sniffed - a totally useless physical tic, but then they all still held onto learned habits from before. 'I overheard your talk, Laz. He's right. You're  _not_ his brother - get over it. As for the Millennial Thieves - we've got an ace in the hole that'll stop them from trying anything stupid. We have their second in command. Whilst we have Zero, they won't risk getting him killed.'

'I rather think you underestimate the heroic mindset,' Lazarus replied dryly. 'Rational risk assessment isn't a recruitment priority - and the rest of the leadership is Zero's wife and his two eldest sons…'

'You're forgetting that slippery old fox Hannibal, lurking in the shadows of Carmilla in his so-called "retirement". Our master would be pleased if we could cement our alliance with Promethium however - perhaps Zero would be useful as bait? Lure the leadership into a trap - maybe even snag Promethium's sister? The bounty for each of them isn't small either - more than even Harlock's head is worth.'

'Now who's over-complicating the situation?' Lazarus asked with a laconic drawl. Pryder's mouth twitched in a  _mea culpa_  half-smile. 'Zera Sender wants the secret to those synthetic cells - and we all stand to benefit from that tech. Our bodies are good, but maintenance intensive.'

'Extortionately expensive is a phrase that comes to mind,' Pryder interjected. 'And how much did that little interlude with Harlock cost you? All of your marionettes?'

Lazarus waved a hand. 'Nano-form puppets. Hardly top of the line compared to these primaries.'

'Huh.' Pryder looked as though he wasn't convinced. 'Took the shine of your half-year returns though, didn't it? And so did getting you out of the SDF facility. We can't afford another fuck-up, or the Counts Mecha will be looking for another leader.'

'Is that a threat?'

Pryder smiled coldly. 'Not at all - I'm perfectly happy in the shadows. I was a musician, not a politician or a soldier. I jumped at Zera Sender's offer for purely selfish reasons…' he stared down at his hands and wriggled his fingers, turning his hands over and back again as though looking for imperfections in the too-perfect skin. 'Of course the irony here is, somewhere along the way, I lost the ability to play…'

'You play perfectly,' Lazarus told him bluntly.

'Ah. Well, that's the problem, isn't it?' Pryder replied airily. He waved off Lazarus' baffled expression. 'You wouldn't understand. You weren't selected for your artistic talents, after all.' He picked up his tablet, placed at some point on one of the battered consoles. 'Half an hour, Lazarus, local time. Either leave Harlock where he is or kill him. There's not much he can do to stop us.' With that he left, leaving Lazarus staring with a furrowed brow at the open doorway he exited through for several seconds, before shaking his head in exasperation.

* * *

In the darkness, Zero at least figured the loss of his glasses wasn't going to be the handicap it otherwise might have been. He groaned and pushed himself upright, feeling around the floor at his side on the off chance they might be somewhere around. His fingers only encountered dust and rubble - and a shard of glass he hit flat on rather than finding the edge first. He pulled his hand away. In the few heartbeats that had taken, the darkness slowly resolved into a crepuscular gloomy blur.

'Here.' A small hand touched his, and something thin and cold was placed into his palm. His hand curled around the familiar shape of his glasses, and with not a little relief, he put them on.

This resolved the blur, but not the lack of light, although the night-vision built into the lenses soon took care of that. He took in his surroundings with a fast scan born of long - far too long - experience. A small room - possibly a cell. One small bed along the far wall, and an empty desk bolted to the wall. No other furniture. He was sitting on the floor and the little boy - Zephyr - was sitting next to him, still wearing Harlock's jacket - far too large on his small frame - and sporting a large blaster bolt burn on his bare chest. 'Thanks. How did you manage to…'

'They weren't paying attention. And I thought you might need them.' The kid shrugged. 'You were out for a while, and they took the other guy.' He frowned slightly, the expression curiously adult on his boyish face. 'Are they really from the same batch… I mean - brothers? They don't look much alike. Apart from the eye patches…'

'They were. Lazarus' situation is complicated.'

'Not much complicated about copying a neural pattern into a blank host,' Zephyr replied blithely. At Zero's questioning look he explained: 'Different energy signature to the machinners. Kinda like an infection. Red. Machinners are blue, regardless of the body-type.' He shrugged and grinned, anticipating the next question. 'The people who made me… they experimented. A lot.'

'I'm almost afraid to ask…' Zero murmured. He gave the boy another searching once-over. 'Your injury…'

A shrug, so familiar to a man who'd raised two boys already with a third at the age when "I'll be fine" was the response to anything from a grazed knee to a compound fracture (no hyperbole on that last… both Marin and Blaze had demonstrated a lamentable lack of caution when it came to climbing trees at similar ages. Daisuke thankfully had yet to get past the grazed knees.) 'It'll close up eventually.'

'But if it's going to do so properly, it needs attention. At least let me take a look.'

'You'd do better to look after yourself first.' But he did edge closer. 'Cool glasses, by the way.'

'They have their uses.' The lenses weren't perfect, but he could see at least the boy wasn't bleeding, although he could see damaged synthetic muscle and a rib.

'Don't worry. I don't get infections. Bacteria can't damage my systems.'

'Your cells are still organic,' Zero pointed out.

'Sexaroids are more of a desert environment to them compared to humans. And our protein receptors are different. They can't do the same kind of damage.' He pulled Harlock's jacket back around himself. 'Yet. You're gonna have trouble though with those cuts - and they've taken your boots…'

Zero was painfully aware of both facts, since his feet were like blocks of ice, the thin coverall someone had replaced his clothes with was far from proof against the chill, and whoever had cut his clothes off him in the first place hadn't been overly careful doing it - or watched where they'd thrown him when he'd been dropped in here, unconscious. 'Standard procedure - slows down any prisoner who wants to get clever and try to escape.' He looked down at Zephyr's bare, filthy and bloodied feet. 'Doesn't that hurt?' he asked softly.

Again with the dismissive shrug. 'I'm used to it.' The boy stood up abruptly. 'But I'm not staying around for this bastard to cut me up. Don't plan on letting that happen again.'

Zero got to his feet, a little unsteadily, and winced as the soles encountered the rubble - and glass - underfoot. 'There's a tetanus shot in my future…' he muttered. 'How do you plan on getting out of here? Tear the door off its hinges?'

The look of scorn sent his way almost elicited a laugh, it reminded him so much of Marin at that age. 'I got the body of a ten year old - not a dockside bruiser. Just stand back - I ain't done this for a while. Haven't had the reserves…' He held his left hand out, palm towards the door's lock, and concentrated. A faint golden glow appeared, flashed brightly, and he pulled his hand back to reveal the electrics sparking. A push was all it took slide the door back into the wall and he grinned up at Zero. 'Wait here - I'll grab a pair of shoes for you - the lab's just across the way and it was a clean room, so there's a changing facility.' He scuttled across and ducked into one of the open doorways, seemingly oblivious to the debris underfoot. Zero leaned against the door frame, keeping a wary eye and ear out for company, and feeling the loss of his weapons quite keenly.

Then he shook his head at his own slowness, leaned down and picked up a rock. Sometimes you had to love technology… it made people so damn  _lazy_. Not only did the machinners trust the locks enough to not bother with guards, but they'd also left him with a room - and corridor - full of improvisable weapons. Looking around his night-sight caught a glimpse of a long metal pole with one end twisted and jagged. He was just about able to pick his way through the rubble without doing too much damage to pick that up, and hefted it experimentally. A little oddly balanced, but it would do nicely. He stuck several rocks in his coverall's pockets, and was leaning casually against the wall again when Zephyr re-appeared carrying a pair of rubber-soled slip-ons.


	6. Chapter 6

If there was ever a moment to be thankful for the legendary - if sometimes stereotyped Martian prudery, Harlock reflected as one of the dialheads threw his pants back at him and snarled something about him getting dressed, it was now. Lazarus' insistence on him covering up was the perfect cover for stuffing his pockets with a random assortment of crap from the floor of the abandoned complex.

Sadly, that didn't extend to giving him his boots back so he was resigned to stumbling painfully over rubble, broken glass and random metal shards with increasingly bruised and torn feet, trying to avoid the worst of it as someone shoved him in the back for the eighth time in as many minutes. That, and listening to the pair discussing how they planned on crippling him when they reached the room they intended to store him in.

'You grab the foot and twist whilst I hold onto the rest of him. Could be amusing…'

'Smash it with something? Trouble is the femur's tough...'

'Or I could just shoot him in the leg,' the other offered. Shove number nine. 'You! Pick your feet up! We don't have all day!'

'Risks killing him if you hit the femoral artery. The Count doesn't like it if you break his things, remember?'

'Some things don't change. He once slapped his four year old cousin for breaking a vase,' Harlock interjected in his most conversational tone. 'Here's an idea - why not just let me go? I'll kill the bastard and you won't have to worry about repercussions if you screw up?'

That earned him a pistol butt in the left kidney. 'This one thinks he's funny,' the first one said. The both laughed, the mechanical sniggering enough to make even the most even-tempered man curl his lip in a snarl. Harlock generally prided himself on being fairly easy going, but right now… not so much.

'Oh… I'm the life and soul of the party,' he replied, his voice dripping with insincerity. 'I do a great line in slapstick…' Shove number ten.

'Yeah. We can tell. The flailing almost-falls here are a laugh a minute,' one of the dialheads replied with a creditable attempt at sarcasm. 'Whaddya do for an encore?'

'Bleed,' sniggered the other.

'Actually, I had this in mind.'

Never one to hang around once he had a plan in motion, he went into action. Throwing yourself backwards and headbutting machinners wasn't effective on the head butting side, but it was still a move most captors never saw coming. It always caused anyone holding you to ease up or let go in surprise, and his next move was improvised on the spot with a handful of grit shoved into the "eye" dial of the machinner on his left. Whilst that one was trying to clear its visual sensors, he grabbed the sidearm from its flailing hand, shot the second one in the face and finished off the first through the central dial. Both dropped heavily to the ground with metallic thunks. 'Either they have a really, really low standard for recruitment, or that process really does turn everyone stupid,' he muttered. 'Ow!' This last was in response to treading on a sharp stone as he moved, not looking where he was placing his abused feet. He looked around quickly to check the ruckus hadn't drawn attention, then knelt at the side of the second machinner to liberate its pistol.

Which turned out to be his cosmo dragoon. 'Thieving little shit. Just so you know - crime doesn't pay…' A pistol in each hand, he made his way carefully down the corridor, hoping to find the room they'd locked Zero in.

* * *

He almost shot Zero's head off a few minutes later, when the two of them, both on alert, came face to face around a corner, Harlock with pistol raised, Zero with a rock in one hand. The boy, behind him, just rolled his eyes in disgust. 'Couldn't you tell it was your mate?' he asked.

Harlock lowered his weapon and waved his free hand at Zero. 'What were you going to do with that? Throw it or try to bash your way through a titanium chassis?'

'He might have got lucky and smashed in a dial. That's their weak spot.' The boy leaned against the nearest wall, trembling slightly.

Zero looked down with some concern at the boy. 'Zephyr?' He knelt beside the boy.

'Problem?' Harlock hovered over the pair, torn between keeping a lookout for trouble and concern over the small boy. He didn't know that much about artificial humans, but even to his eye, the child looked pale and more than a little wobbly on his legs.

'Used up too much energy getting me out of the room they locked us in. A neat trick kiddo, but you need to save it for when it really matters, okay?'

'No need to fuss,' Zephyr replied grumpily, with an eye-roll aimed over Zero's head to Harlock that had the pirate struggling to hold back a laugh at his friend's expense. 'And I'm not a kid…' With astonishing swiftness his posture changed from disgruntled to alert. 'Company!' Then he relaxed just as quickly. 'Human.'

'Not necessarily friendly,' Zero quipped as he got to his feet. He looked from the rock in his hands to the pistols in Harlock's. 'Oh… don't suppose you thought to pick one of those up for me, did you?'

Harlock handed over the spare. 'What else are friends for?' He watched as Zero checked the weapon over. 'There's about two thirds of a charge left. Mine's not much better - I think they were playing with it.'

'It's not fair to blame anyone for playing with Tochiro's toys if they get their paws on them…' Zero pulled Zephyr in close and made the boy stand behind him. 'You - keep behind me.' His protectiveness just earned him a stubborn mulish glare. 'Don't give me that look… I have five boys and three of them are old enough to give me shit like that.'

'Well is that what a dutiful son wants to hear mid-rescue? Harlock - take your pistol out of my ear please.'

Harlock lowered his pistol with a grin. 'Blaze.' he looked over Blaze's shoulder and his smile fell slightly. 'Emeraldas.' The red-haired girl just rolled her eyes and shouldered her way past her cousin.

'Told you they didn't need rescuing.' She sniffed disdainfully - although truth be told, Harlock was of the opinion that she couldn't combine the action with any other adverb. 'Who's this?' She looked down at the boy and looked him over. 'And why's he half-naked and wearing Harlock's jacket?'

'Zephyr - Emeraldas. Emeraldas - Zephyr. Long story,' Harlock replied smoothly. 'What the hell are you two doing down here - not that we don't appreciate the thought…'

'Looks like a synth to me.' She straightened. 'And a rather smelly little boy to boot.'

'Beats having a stick up your cu-'

'Zephyr!' Zero cut short the boy's observation even as Blaze and Harlock caught each other's eyes and struggled not to laugh.

'He's a quick judge of character,' Harlock deadpanned to Blaze, close to the other man's ear and low enough not to be heard.

'I'm just glad it's the Arcadia she prefers. I'm not sure I wouldn't shove her out the nearest airlock within a month.' Blaze eyed Harlock up, taking in his bloodied, bare feet. 'What happened to your clothes? Or do I not want to ask…?'

'Thankfully "bathe him and bring him to my tent" wasn't in play.' Harlock replied. 'But "strip search them because I've seen some of their tricks for hiding weapons and tools" was.'

'Given it's that copy of your damned brother I'm rather glad the former wasn't an option,' Zero quipped.

Harlock didn't look quite so amused. 'One way or another I was getting fucked if he kept me,' he growled. 'Now - not that I'm unhappy to see either of you, but why are you here? We didn't get a chance to trigger a distress signal.'

'Lazarus, huh? I thought we had him locked up? As for the distress signal, you didn't need to,' Blaze told him. 'Oi - Emmy - take point will you? Shoot anything that heads in our direction?' Once the girl had complied, with a flounce and a sniff, he continued: 'Some of the readings we took were a bit too hinky for comfort. Thought it was better to come and find you. We really don't want to hang around on this planet much longer - this zero point energy is off the charts under this facility, and looks as though there was a major containment breach at some point. There's a crack all the way down to the mantle, and…'

Harlock leaned heavily against the wall and groaned. 'Not the damned planet… no-one will ever believe  _I_  didn't blow it up…'

Zero glared at him, although the effect was somewhat lost behind his dark glasses. 'Really? A whole planet full of people and you're worried about your reputation?'

Blaze opened his mouth to reply but Harlock shook his head. 'Your sarcasm detector is on the fritz,' he snapped. 'But unless you can bring enough ships to relocate several thousand people - a lot of whom won't move anyway, if they haven't already - I'm not sure what we can do. I'm all out of ideas on these situations - they never work out well.' He turned to Blaze 'Timescale?'

'Weeks at most. Days most likely. Like you say - rounding up enough transports would be tough in the time, and planets like this have seen too much crap already: most people would resist being relocated, and after the homecoming fiasco and machinners culls, who would blame them?' He sighed. 'Doesn't mean we can't try, and Marin did send a message through to Destiny and Carmilla to warn them.' He glared at his father. 'And for fuck's sake dad - you know how fast he processes this shit. Get off his case.'

'Know anything about this?' Zero asked Zephyr, ignoring the rebuke, although in passing he did offer Harlock a small shrug of his left shoulder as a tacit apology. He got a tiny shrug in reply. Apology accepted.

Zephyr looked up at him with eyes that were all too human. 'A containment breach - but not a quick one. They just didn't have a clue how to use the stuff, it was all trial and error.' He gestured towards his thin, damaged body. 'As you can see.' His lip curled into an entirely too adult sneer.

'And yet,' Harlock mused, 'it hasn't destroyed you yet.' He knelt beside the boy and stared into his eyes. 'It's not just down to how they built you, is it?' When he was met with a mulish silence, he sighed. 'No-one here means you any harm, kid. Quite the opposite. So help us out a little. ZP energy can be contained and manipulated, and somehow, when they made you, they got something right…'

'Not me,' Zephyr replied. He tugged the loaned jacket closer around his thin torso. 'My mother.'

'Mother?' Blaze looked from his father to his friend and back again, ignoring the snort from his cousin behind him at the word. 'I thought…' He looked down at the little boy, a puzzled frown on his face.

'My mother-ball,' Zephyr explained patiently, with the air of someone explaining things to a small child. 'They cannibalised the previous generation to make me, and since they made me so small, they couldn't build in the control components, so they built what was left of Mother into a separate control unit.'

'The ball we found that re-energised you?' Harlock asked. Zephyr nodded. 'She picks the energy out of the surroundings and then I can use it.' He looked around, looking suddenly lost. 'We need to go back for her. I can't last long without her. And she knows stuff. About the project.'

'Back.' Zero took his glasses off, polished them on the cuff of his coveralls, and pushed them back onto his nose. 'We are supposed to be escaping.'

'Not very fast,' Emeraldas added from where she stood watch. 'Could we move this up a little and hold the exposition in the shuttle, maybe?'

'Just keep your eyes on the corridor,' Blaze advised her.

'If the next words out of your mouth are "let the men handle it…"'

'Like I'd dare,' Blaze replied chirpily. 'I like my balls where they are. But you're the youngest, so you get the shit detail.'

'I get shot at first; where's your chivalry?' she shot back.

'In the same grave as your sweet nature,' he replied with a smirk. But he took up a stance against the opposite wall to stand with her. 'But since most of that small group are busy trying to get those servers running so that Lazarus can grab whatever data he's after, I don't think we're in much danger.'

'Enough,' Harlock said quietly, sharing a look with Zero. He turned his attention back to Zephyr. 'Could your mother stop a runaway zero point reaction?'

'It's not running away yet,' Zephyr replied. He thought for a moment and nodded. 'She can, I think. But it won't be easy. I'd need to ask her.'

The two older men met each other's eyes over the top of his head. 'Not the dumbest stunt we've ever pulled,' Harlock drawled. 'But before we go any further I want my boots back. Any idea where they left our clothes?'

'I know the room,' Zephyr said. He took Zero by the hand. 'This way.'

* * *

Lazarus didn't look up from the screen he was using when Pryder came back into the room. 'Let me guess. Our prisoners have escaped?'

'How did you…? Yes. Harlock killed both the machinners and Zero has the synth. We don't have much in the way of support here given our supply of witless minions just got whittled down by a third - do we chase them down?'

'Why bother.' Lazarus stood up and turned to face Pryder, a sly smirk playing around the corners of his mouth. 'I know my brother. He'll come to us.' His smirk widened. 'Always needs a push though, to get going. Possibly the threat was a little much.'

Pryder's eyes narrowed as her stared at Lazarus. 'You knew he'd make a break for it?'

Lazarus turned back to the screen. 'I was counting on it. If I'd had him thrown in a cell he'd probably just sit and wait for reinforcements from the  _Futatsuboshi_. We're on a tight schedule here, remember? I need to know how that little boy works, and I've seen enough of how both my baby brother and the Millennial Thieves work to know they'll try to stop that zero point energy leak - and that little boy is the key to containing the stuff. If anyone can persuade him to co-operate, it's those two bleeding hearts. Threaten to vivisect little Pinocchio, add a little sadistic urgency and turn them loose to solve our problem for us. That's the nice thing about heroes - they're so predictable.' He pointed to a viewscreen showing a mostly empty store-room. 'Keep watching - if I'm right, the key to this zero point containment is that ball. I couldn't get a reading on its composition, and its energy requirements are excessive for its size. Can't scan it, can't scratch it… but the boy was reluctant to let it go...'

Pryder took a seat in one of the battered metal chairs in front of the console and put his feet up on the dusty desk in front of the monitor. 'One of these days you're going to outsmart yourself, you know that? And not in that caught-with-your-pants-down fashion that left you a few puppets down and languishing in an SDF prison for several months. You merely over-reached on that whole dangerous game thing. You know what Harlock's capable of, even if you are in denial about your kid brother being up to it. Trolling him is  _not_  smart - have you heard the stories they tell about this guy out here? If even half of those are true, you're baiting the bear. He eats smug, self-righteous, entitled assholes for breakfast.' He picked up his guitar from where it had been leaning against the desk, and began idly strumming. 'Or is there more to it? I mean, he's adamant that he doesn't buy into the whole "a copy indistinguishable from the original" thing - are you just trying to get his attention?'

'Stick to crooning power ballads in low rent bars, Pryder. It's about all your pop psychology is good for,' Lazarus snapped.

Pryder casually re-tuned the E string, and laughed down his nose, the sound setting Lazarus' teeth on edge. 'Doesn't make it any less right,' he replied mildly. 'And fair warning, Laz - you really,  _really_  don't want Harlock's attention. Not like this. We'd do better to pack up and take what we have. Let the Big Damn Heroes save the planet or whatever it is they do for shits and giggles. We've got what we came for - the Boss will be more than happy - we can work out the rest.'

Lazarus shook his head, still intently studying the data. 'For Zera Sender, yes. But I'm not done yet. Not by far.'

Pryder sighed, gave the machine head a final turn and began to play and old melody - the  _adagio_ from the Concierto de Aranjuez.

Perfectly.

Soullessly.

No listener ever complained. They applauded. Laughed. Wept - whatever emotion he wanted them to feel, he could still evoke. Human or machinner, they couldn't tell the difference.

He died a little more inside every time he played for anyone other than himself.

Lazarus, alone in the room with that ancient, beautiful melody playing to an audience of two, heard the change in Pryder's playing - that point he could always tell when the musician's sorrow at what was lost was echoed in his interpretation, and said nothing.


	7. Chapter 7

Whilst Emeraldas and Blaze watched the door, Harlock and Zero looked on as Zephyr embraced the now-glowing ball of electronics that hovered in front of the small boy, lights on it pulsing in time to an unheard heartbeat.

'Do you think it really is sentient?' Zero leaned in towards Harlock and whispered in his ear. Before the pirate could reply, the ball popped out of the embrace and rotated until two large gauges faced the pair.

'Well I'm feeling as though I'm being watched,' Harlock drawled. 'Here's hoping mama-ball doesn't take exception to a couple of bad influences…' He leaned over to give the tops of his recovered boots a tug, as they refused to lie snugly against the fabric of the coveralls he was wearing in place of his own clothes. From under an untidy lock of hair he smiled as the boy reached out to touch the floating device and giggled. It might have been his imagination, but he was pretty sure the light that bathed the little android was somehow warmer in tone than it had been when they'd found the device, placed on a workstation in an abandoned lab.

'Can we hurry this up?' Emeraldas' voice always held a hint of annoyance, as though she held the entire universe and everyone in it accountable for every wrong in her life. Which, Harlock kept to himself, wasn't unlike most teenaged girls he'd known back on Mars, growing up…

'Any activity?' Zero asked.

'Nothing yet, but she has a point - we're pushing our luck, dad.' Blaze at least made up in civility what his young cousin lacked. Harlock tended to hold the parents accountable. Emeraldas' mother had been a paranoid controlling bitch even before she'd decided to trade her body in for a nanotech replica, and her father had reputedly been more interested in his work than his daughters. Not, he thought, surreptitiously eying up the young girl, that her mother had had much of chance - Blaze's mother had risked execution and embraced permanent exile rather than face the Lar Metallian monarchy's idea of a coronation, which amounted to stuffing the accumulated memories of generations of previous queens into the head of a young girl. That most of them ended up batshit insane, power hungry sociopaths shouldn't, to his way of thinking, come as anything of a surprise to anyone.

'Zephyr?' Zero approached the small android, and laid a hand on his shoulder. At his approach the hovering ball flashed red, sending a wash of light over him, then returned to a soft yellow-orange pulse. 'It's okay, mother, I don't mean your son any harm,' he added quietly. Harlock watched warily as he reached out a hand to the device, which retreated a few inches, and then held its ground as he touched the surface gently with his fingers. 'Or you…' He smiled as the ball flickered under his touch, and then rotated away from his hand, to hover behind the boy's shoulder. 'Does she have a name?' he asked.

Zephyr looked blankly at him, then shook his head. 'Mother?' he suggested eventually.

 _Boreas_.

All four humans looked startled at the voice that emerged from the ball. Mechanical, but undeniably feminine. Also, to Harlock's mind, it - she - sounded very young. 'Of course…' he murmured under his breath. 'The  _East_ wind…'

_Copies of the memory core of Android WG-187233 are housed in these shells. Other core systems were copied and most of the physical components were re-used in creating Zephyr. This shell has self-defence protocols and is tasked with protecting the Zephyr prototype. Calculating threat levels…_

'Er… dad… that doesn't sound good…' Blaze called out from his station at the doorway. Zero raised a hand to shush him, and Harlock dropped a hand as unobtrusively as possible to the gun at his hip. The ball swivelled until the largest gauge was facing him.

'We mean the boy no harm,' Harlock told it quietly. 'But there are those on this planet who do. The sooner we can leave, the better. But we do need your help. Zephyr tells us you can handle the zero point energy released in the facility?

'Mother - it's all right. They did help.' Zephyr placed a hand on the ball, and it sank slowly to just above the level of the floor. 'And I told them you could do something…'

 _Threat assessment revision accepted. Zero point energy readings increasing. Projection: planetary integrity will reach critical levels in seven hours. Chain reaction will be unstoppable after eighty-four hours_.

'Well that's not good,' Blaze replied. He glanced towards his father. 'There is no way in hell there's enough time for the transport ships to get here. And we can't take more than a hundred passengers, tops.'

'We might not have to.' Zero knelt beside the android. 'Zephyr - we don't need to stop the reaction completely - just slow it enough for a rescue convoy to get here. Can your mother-ball do that?'

'She says yes,' the boy replied after a silent conversation. 'If you act soon, she can set the system to bleed off the excess energy and slow down the critical path. But the energy needs to go somewhere - you'd need to re-align the antenna array on the north tower. There's only enough power for one try though. The facility is running on battery power.'

'I saw that tower on the way in,' Emeraldas said. 'It's on the verge of falling down and from the look of the door I could see filled with rubble, there was no way up inside - how the hell can anyone get up there to do that?'

Harlock let out a sigh and raised his right hand. 'I guess that would be me…' he said wryly. 'Just no-one tell Kei when we get home - you know how she feels about me making solo free climbs up dodgy architecture…' Zero, Blaze and Emeraldas all fixed him with hard looks. 'What?'

'Nothing,' three voices chorused.

'One building,' he muttered. 'I fell off  _one_ building -  _after_ being shot at…'

'Shot,' Zero corrected amiably. ' _At_  suggests they missed…' He turned his attention back to the boy and his "mother". 'What do we need to do down here?'

'She says there's a control panel for the ZPE generator - if we can get to that, we need to reverse the flow. Then the collector should disperse it via the array into space.'

'That'll have to be a pretty tight beam transmission,' said Blaze. 'It'd have to be tight leaving the atmosphere but wide dispersal afterwards to avoid any problems. The faster it disperses, the better.'

'ZP Energy doesn't work like that,' the boy replied. 'If you disperse it, it'll just form a shield around the planet and fall back through the atmosphere and you won't solve anything. In fact it could make it worse...'

'Of course it would,' Harlock murmured. 'Why would this be simple? And why oh why did I leave the  _Arcadia_ behind? Right now I could really use Mimay and Tochiro...'

 _There is a containment system on the base that is still active, and currently close to depleted. The array needs to point to the current pool of energy in the continental crust, and connected to the collector via my circuits. Zephyr's systems can co-ordinate with mine to control the energy flow_.

'Company!' Emeraldas called out. 'Are we done here? Because there are a couple of dial-heads moving this way!'

Harlock walked over to Blaze. 'Can you spare your gloves? Someone stole mine.' Blaze handed them over with a brief smile.

'I'd ask for them back but that's a hundred-foot climb, and I've a feeling they won't survive…' Harlock nodded his thanks and tugged them on.

'I'll take the boy and Emeraldas,' Zero told them. He placed a hand on Zephyr's thin shoulder. 'Blaze - make sure your brother's on standby for a fast pickup, then go with Harlock.'

'He can't climb,' Harlock pointed out.

'No, but he can watch your back from the ground in case Lazarus makes a play. You'll have all your attention on that wall.' He nodded once to the small group in the doorway. 'Now get going - the sooner we're out of here the happier I'll be.'

Harlock and Blaze took off at a run, and Zero led his small charge over to where Emeraldas stood watching the corridor. 'Em?'

'They're holding a position just out of sight. Since they didn't make a move on Harlock or Blaze…'

'They have orders,' Zero finished for her. 'Damn, this bastard's slick and far too savvy for my taste.'

Emeraldas pulled a face, wrinkling her long nose. 'We had him in custody, uncle, but he had enough pull to arrange to be rescued. I went over his record - Admiral Isora's rise through the ranks was meteoric, despite his accident. Full admiral at twenty-five and fleet admiral at twenty-seven.'

'He's good at using people,' Zero mused. 'That much I know. Right now, I rather suspect that means us…' When she raised one elegantly arched red eyebrow he smiled briefly. 'Why would he risk his own hide investigating when he's got a bunch of terminal do-gooders to do the hard work?'

* * *

Harlock stared up at the crumbling wall in front of him and tried his best nonchalant face out on Blaze, who raised an eyebrow and said 'Really? You need to work on your stoic delivery, there.'

'I've climbed worse,' he replied, without much conviction. He scanned the wall carefully as far up as he could for several long seconds, then shifted a few paces to the left and repeated the exercise. 'Well there are plenty of finger and toe holds - the only thing I won't know until I start is if they'll hold…' He placed a hand on the wall and ran it up the rough surface, his fingers seeking the best point of first contact.

Blaze laid a restraining hand on his arm. 'We could wait. Go back to the shuttle, drop someone down to do this…'

Harlock shook his head. 'You can see the state this building's in - you can't risk a shuttle's propulsion system down-drafting the entire structure.'

'Then we get some rope for belaying…?'

Harlock shook his head again. 'Where from? I don't carry climbing equipment with me as standard, and unlike an old-fashioned sailing ship, last time I looked, we don't carry spare rope…'

'But…' Blaze looked on in bewildered admiration as Harlock placed the fingers of his left hand into a small crevice, reached up with his right hand for another hold, and placed his right foot in a small gap. Without looking the toe of his left foot found its hold, and he clung about a foot off the ground, already looking for his next holds.

'Relax, Blaze - I've done this more times than I care to mention!'

'Kind of what worries me,' Blaze muttered, ignoring the finger briefly flipped in his direction.

* * *

Inside the facility, Lazarus regarded the image from a concealed camera drone and snorted. 'And paid the price for it. Idiot.' He sat back in his chair as the pirate swarmed up the side of the tower, and tapped idly on the desk. Behind him, Pryder looked on with interest as those tapping fingers stopped - along with a sharp intake of breath, when the small figure on the screen slipped as a piece of plascrete crumbled, hanging for an instant by the fingers of one hand and with only one toe hold, before swinging expertly back, finding a toe hold without looking and reaching out for the next hand hold.

'For saying you hate him so much, you seem to be more than a little nervous on his behalf,' he noted.

'Sloppy technique,' Lazarus retorted. 'He still climbs by the seat of his pants despite everything father taught us. And another twenty feet and he'll realise he's going to have a problem getting over that overhand - it's only six inches, but the plascrete's rotten. The moment he commits to it, it'll crumble.'

'Long drop,' Pryder added laconically. 'Over a hundred feet. Not even dark matter will put him together after that…' He noticed the set of Lazarus' shoulders and smiled to himself. 'Still, clears up one nuisance in this neck of the woods…' He switched his attention to another screen. 'We're ready to leave as soon as you give the word. Oh - and the heroes' B team are heading for what must be that control room we were trying to locate. How far do you want to let them get?'

Lazarus didn't even bother to look round. 'Let them finish. It's the data we need. Although I'd like to take that android back with us, we have other options if Zero's people get antsy. Westwind buried most of that data - if Zero manages to crack the security we couldn't, I want you on that datastack as soon as possible.' He stood up, stretching as he did so as though revelling in the sensation, even though it was as much as an affectation as breathing for their kind. 'I've someplace to be.'

After he'd left Pryder leaned back in his chair, balancing on the two rear legs, and placed his feet on a desk. 'You know, if you don't stop picking at it, it'll never heal…' He settled down to watch the show.

* * *

The nice thing about old buildings, Harlock thought to himself as he climbed, was that they didn't lack for handholds, toeholds and numerous crevices into which strong fingers could be wedged whilst you dangled from your fingertips and scrambled for a foothold.

The downside was a distressing tendency to sneak up on you with shoddy workmanship. Especially when you looked up at an already inconvenient outcropping of plascrete and realised that you'd quite possibly screwed up royally.

'Harlock?' Blaze's voice in his ear sounded concerned.

'I got this,' he replied, as confidently as he could. 'Kei,' he muttered, 'is going to kill me. If I survive the fall…'

'What was that?'

'Nothing.'

'Shit! Watch yourself - you've got company! Hey - that's one of our new hover-platforms… thieving bastard, we  _knew_ someone pilfered the plans!'' Followed by a heartfelt "dammit... he's too far up to get a bead on…' Ignoring the frustrated muttering, and with a reasonably secure perch for the moment, he scanned the wall ahead and above, and to the sides, searching for a new path to get up and over the last couple of feet. He was concentrating on edging over to his left where the plascrete looked a little less damaged, when he heard the soft hum of the hover-platform behind him, and the gentle pressure of displaced air against his back. He didn't need to turn around to check the identity of its occupant. 'Lazarus.'

'Quite a problem you have there,' the synth drawled. 'You never did pay enough attention to the terrain before you committed.'

Harlock's fingers were starting to cramp, but he held on with a grim smile, hidden though it was from the speaker. 'Now  _you're_ starting to sound like dad.'

'And now  _you're_ being insulting,' Lazarus retorted. 'And it doesn't change the fact that you're in something of a bind up here.'

'There's a way up,' Harlock replied, as blandly as he could.

''Only if you've got another pair of hands and are prepared to dislocate your groin,' Lazarus sniped. 'And you'd need to twist your right leg round to do it, and we both know that however good that surgery was, there's no way your thigh will take that.'

Since he could already feel the muscle starting to cramp in the aforementioned leg, Harlock kept his mouth shut over the retort he'd had ready to unleash. 'Were you planning to stand there and gloat whilst I plummet to my death?' He shifted his grip as much as he dared, trying to wriggle his fingers further into the crevice they were clinging to.

'Actually…' Lazarus sounded almost amused. 'Since you already seem to have a plan to postpone the inevitable for this piss-poor excuse for a planet, and that suits me rather nicely, I had thought I'd offer you a hand.'

'Bite me,' Harlock snapped. 'Do you think I'm still some doe-eyed innocent? You'd drop me without shedding a single tear.'

'Normally, yes. But you do have something I want, so... ' When his outstretched hand was ignored, he sighed theatrically. 'Yama. You certainly shouldn't trust my good intentions, but you of all people know that you can trust my ambition. I'd rather use you than watch you fall - entertaining though that would be.' He smirked. 'You don't have many options left. You either slip and fall, or you can risk that I'm lying - and still fall to your death - or trust me this once and accept that I won't kill you until your use to me is over.'

'This from the man who just ordered his dialhead goons to try and rip my leg off?'

Lazarus laughed. 'It got your arse into gear, didn't it?'

Harlock didn't have chance to frame a smart reply, because the plascrete under his feet chose that moment to crumble. Although he scrabbled frantically for a purchase, he slipped, dangling by the fingertips of his right hand, for a few precious seconds.

Then even that fragile purchase on life was gone. He began to fall.

Lazarus' fingers closed around his wrist in an iron grip, and hauled him effortlessly onto the hover platform, where he lay on his back waiting for his heartbeat to settle back down into a less frantic rhythm and waited for Blaze's panicked swearing in his ear to subside

Lazarus' smirking, one-eyed faced leaned over him. 'You're welcome.'

* * *

They had to make their way through the broken, torn bodies of the other androids in order to reach the control room. Zephyr, his hand held with surprising gentleness in the much large one of the man called Zero, watched the girl warily as she picked her way through the carnage. Like Zero and Harlock, she moved carefully, trying not to step on any body parts. Her lips compressed into a line line of distaste as she cast her eyes over the scene.

He liked those eyes. Green, and kind of hard, but pretty. And there was a hurt in them, under the tough veneer.

'What happened?' she asked, addressing him, he realised, not the human next to him.

Zephyr shivered, feeling cold even inside Harlock's warm jacket. Parts of him were still naked, and the air was turning to the cool chill of early evening, but just the thought of that night made him want to curl up somewhere warm, and safe. Away from the harsh reality of too many uncorrupted body parts, and eyes that stared up at him accusingly. For daring to try and save them. For failing. 'I got away. Someone must have talked though, because they started trying to track me down. Didn't matter where I went, they'd always find me. So I came back. I thought if the others would escape, then perhaps we'd all be safe.' He pulled his hand free of Zero's grip and wrapped his arms around his thin torso, staring up at her from under a lock of dark hair. 'The scientists and the security though… we ended up here and the doors were supposed to be open. One of our own told them. They shut and locked down the atrium and…'

He couldn't explain to them that he still saw it, still felt it, as though it was still happening. His memory didn't have the filters of the naturals, where the images, sounds, scents and tastes of an event faded with time. To remember was to experience, all over again.

Water ran from the corners of his eyes and down his face, and he wiped it away angrily. Stupid, stupid things the naturals had programmed his body to do that were totally unnecessary… The motherball hovering behind him pulsed but her calming energy-signature for once didn't ease the tightness in his muscles, or the jittering sensations in a thousand nerve endings. Zero knelt at his side and placed an arm around his shoulders, but said nothing.

He stared dumbly up into the girl's face, and saw something there he hadn't expected. Something raw, but also strangely sympathetic. She too knelt beside him, and reached out to take his hand in hers. She'd taken her glove off, and her pale skin was warm. Through his sensitive fingertips, he could feel a slight pulse when they brushed against her wrist. 'Hey.' She reached out and brushed away the trail of water from his cheek. 'Keep seeing it, don't you?' she asked softly. 'Even when you  _don't_ close your eyes to make it go away?'

He nodded, not sure what else to say.

Emeraldas looked over into her uncle's face, made as ever impassive by his dark glasses. 'We're not leaving him.'

Zero smiled briefly. 'It's his choice,' he reminded her. He stood up and offered Zephyr his hand again. 'Let's get out of here, shall we?'

Emeraldas followed, unfolding far more gracefully. 'Do they ever decay?' she asked with a shiver. 'It looks as though they died only hours ago…'

'Five years,' Zephyr told them. 'No-one came back here until a few weeks ago. The place was deserted. But the worst damage was done in the explosion.'

Zero's eyes narrowed behind his dark glasses. 'That's interesting. Yet someone blew this place to hell only a couple of days ago - I thought the incidents were linked.'

Zephyr shook his head. 'That was me,' he admitted. 'I knew where Westwind had set the self-destruct charges. I didn't want that horrible skin-job and the mech-heads taking stuff they shouldn't. He had his people take some of the sexaroid growth tanks, and he was looking for the rest of the research.'

'Meaning you?' Emeraldas asked. Zephyr nodded, and she sighed. 'Is it just me or is the universe just a total crock of shit?'

'You're eighteen,' Zero replied dryly. 'It goes with the territory.' When Zephyr opened his mouth to say he agreed with her he added: 'and you're just way too cynical for your age, kiddo. It's not all bad, even when the going gets tough.'

'How do you do it?' Emeraldas asked him as they continued. 'You've seen the horrors my "grandmother" and mother - and my father - all created. Your own father tried to kill both you and aunt Selen. How can you ever think it gets better?'

'Doesn't it?' he asked, aware of the scrutiny from the small form beside him, listening intently even whilst pretending he was paying no attention. 'We won, didn't we?'

'After a fashion,' she sniffed.

He tried to hide a smile. 'I have your mother. Two amazing sons who've grown into young men I'm proud of. Our younger children will actually get to grow up knowing their parents this time. We have you, and our friends on Carmilla, Tabito, the Arcadia… even your sister when she deigns to actually let us know she's alive and well. The universe isn't perfect, Em - sometimes you just have to hold tight to what you have.' From the look on her face, he wasn't even close to convincing her. His comm unit chose that moment to get his attention and he thumbed the speaker on. 'Zero.'

'Dad?' Blaze's voice held a note of concern his father couldn't possibly miss. 'I think we might have a bit of a problem…'


	8. Chapter 8

Blaze could only stare up to the top of the tower, where Lazarus and Harlock were standing, having stepped off the hovering platform, as he relayed the situation to his father.

'What does Harlock say?' Zero asked eventually.

'He's pissed, that's for sure. But it seems the antenna array controls are shot, and won't move. Lazarus is offering his services.' A pause. 'Dad… I might have a clear shot…'

'With a handgun? At that distance? All you'll do is make him mad. But if they've got  _one_ hover platform…'

Blaze grinned. 'Gotcha. That one snuck up from behind the main building. I'll check it out.' He shook his head as he stared up at the tableau above him. 'Harlock?'

'We've got a detente for now, Blaze. Don't worry about it. For now, we need each other. You can't do much from down there.'

'I might have something that'll change that. Watch your back.'

'Trust me, I won't make the same mistake twice,' Harlock replied. Blaze clicked off the comms and ran for the main building.

* * *

On top of the decidedly unstable tower, Harlock watched Lazarus warily as the synth checked out the antenna array. As he'd explained to Blaze, the automatic controls were fried, and the array bent out of shape enough that nothing he could do would move it.

Lazarus raised his head and smirked. 'I can move it.'

Harlock wished he had a wall to lean against with insolent nonchalance. He had to settle for folding his arms across his chest, and try not to shiver as the chill drizzle-laden wind ripped straight through his thin coveralls. 'Then why don't you? I don't think your audience is getting any bigger.'

'Because someone needs to tell me where to aim it?' Lazarus replied dryly. He reached a hand up to his nose, a gesture Harlock recognised too well, now futile since he didn't wear glasses anymore. A wry grin suggested Lazarus also recognised the tic for what it was. 'You do have the co-ordinates?'

'Assuming you can calculate the adjustments, yes.'

The synth's cold gaze and slight twitch of the corner of his thin mouth were also familiar. With his lost eye hidden in profile, and his hair longer than Isora had worn it in years before his death, it was as though, for a brief moment, time had rolled back over fifteen years.  _Before their mother had died. Before their father had been killed in action. Before Isora, at barely eighteen, had been catapulted into being the guardian for his under-age brother and their foster-sister_.

Harlock stamped down on the memory. But not, he realised, seeing a fleeting smirking, triumphant smile flicker across that cruel mouth, before Lazarus had noticed.

'One benefit to an upgrade,' was all Lazarus said in reply. 'The others being fast reflexes and brute strength…' He placed one hand on the array and waited, a placid smile lurking at the corners of his mouth as he watched the way Harlock's right hand hovered over the hilt of his pistol. 'Whenever you're ready…'

Harlock touched the comm unit in his ear. 'Zero?'

'I heard. Give me a moment.' Harlock waited and Zero reeled off a set of numbers, which he then relayed to the waiting synth.

'Under the main building? I should have guessed: scientists and safety are rarely words that go together positively.' Lazarus, using only one hand, twisted the array back into an upright position, then moved it until it was pointing towards the ruins of the main complex. 'That should be close enough. Maybe you should ask your boyfriend if he's getting a reading yet?'

* * *

In the main control room, Zero shared an anxious look with his niece. 'I'm not convinced this bastard's not just going to push him off the top the moment we have that damn antenna aligned,' he said, careful to keep the comms off. 'Blaze has gone looking for another platform, but Lazarus will spot him coming before he's even off the ground. It doesn't look good.'

'I can't get to him either,' she replied evenly. She fiddled with the butt of the pistol at her hip. 'There's no way to safely bring the shuttle near that tower. Harlock's armed though, and he can take care of himself…'

'One on one? Against a mech who sees him coming and is waiting for an attempt?' Zero pulled his glasses off, stared at the lenses blankly, then put them back on and pushed them up his nose. 'You know how damned fast the reflexes of those things are.'

'I'm faster.'

Both adults stared down at the little boy, who stared up at them with the patient anticipation of a youth twice his apparent age or more. Zero again eyed up the bruised, lacerated and punctured skin of the child, wrapped in that jacket far too large for his small frame. The boy's vivid blue eyes stared into his, wide and disingenuous. 'Absolutely not.' Zero used the voice that worked so well at keeping not only his own sons in line, but most of the Millennial Thieves organisation. 'It's far too dangerous.'

The mulish look that followed that statement was all too familiar. 'I'm light and small - I can get up the inside of that tower, past the fall - I've hidden in it before. Once I reach the stairs, I can reach the top. I can help Harlock more than I can help here; mother's already got the data you need to reset the controls, and she can handle the flow. You don't need me here. And I can take care of myself.'

Remembering the energy the boy had been able to manipulate earlier, Zero didn't doubt it. But the idea of sending a small boy into a fraught situation with a canny enemy willing to kill didn't sit well. Whilst he tried to come up with a suitable response that didn't just rely on "because I said so", Zephyr took matters into his own hands, and darted past him, ducked Emeraldas' token attempt to grab the collar of his jacket, and sped away down the corridor.

Emeraldas lifted a hand to stop her uncle from chasing after him, her hand resting firmly on his chest. 'It's his choice, uncle. And he's right - he does have the size, speed and skills to help. And looks aside, he isn't a little boy. Not really.'

Zero turned away and she dropped her hand. 'Maybe not, but he deserves a chance to be one. They made a child, Em. Then took his childhood away.'

'It happens every day out here, uncle. You can't save them all.' She went back to leaning against the door jamb, scanning the corridor for signs of the machinners.

* * *

Zephyr had been a little optimistic in his assessment of his ability to scramble through the rubble inside the foot of the control tower. The series of small earthquakes that still rattled his senses might not send the populous running for cover, but they had caused the already unstable pile to collapse further, removing his previous route into the tower's central access well. He had to scan the rocky pile carefully before he began his scramble through the heap, moving small plascrete boulders out of the way carefully to clear his path to a small hole that was only just big enough for him to crawl through, and that only if he took off the nice warm jacket he'd been given. He balled it up and pushed it ahead of him, thankful that he'd had the foresight to do so when he tumbled down the slope on the other side unexpectedly, landing in a heap on top of the soft but resistant leather. He was leaking - bleeding - from more long, deep scratches when he stood up, one of them on his forehead which insisted on dripping into his left eye. He rubbed it away with a dirty hand, and then wiped the offending article on the cover of a discarded office chair, leaving red streaks on the once-cream surface amidst the dusty streaks it already held. He struggled back into the jacket, fixed the rubble strewn staircase with a stern glare, and began to run up it, taking the steps two at a time to start with.

By the seventy-fifth step, this had slowed to one at a time. He didn't need to stop to get his breath, but his energy levels, despite his bravado earlier, were not a hundred percent. Plus, he thought glumly staring down at his body, he was leaking in several places.

Already he could feel - and see - the change in the energy levels as the array above him began the process of aligning with the energy sink beneath the complex. Red lightning played around the edges of the tower interior, already lining the steps he walked up, and trailing along the walls like the fire-vines that ran up the outside of derelict buildings.

Just short of the door to the roof, he stopped, listening carefully from behind the cover of the partly-open door. He peered around it looking for Harlock and the one they'd called Lazarus, and spotted the pair several feet away, facing each other, pistols drawn and levelled, but not looking in his direction. He was however standing to Harlock's left, and a momentary twitch of his cheek suggested the pirate had seen him. This meant he was on Lazarus' blind side, and the synth showed no sign that he'd seen Zephyr hiding.

'I just want the little android and the data, Yama. I'm prepared to let you and your friends go this time - despite the appalling treatment I suffered whilst in SDF custody - and before…' his free hand touched the white eyepatch briefly.

'Seriously?' Harlock glared at him. 'You're going  _there_?' his finger tightened perceptibly on the trigger, but his positioning changed slightly to block Lazarus' line of sight to the door Zephyr hid behind.

Whatever frustrations lay between the pair, Zephyr realised, the young man wasn't above using them to distract the synth. But that change of position had not been enough to hide from view the very slight change in posture of the other man.

 _Lazarus will kill him_ … it was a calculation that took microseconds to confirm as a statistical certainty. The synth was playing with his still-human brother with all the casual cruelty of an alley cat toying with a rat. The corollary to that assessment was even more intriguing: Harlock knew, but had now deliberately drawn his brother's attention to save Zephyr, suspending the game of cat and rodent.

After years of suffering human cruelty and apathy, Zephyr was not at all sure how he felt about that. His offer to help the human men had been something of a whim, based on the novelty of their kindness and the way they so readily placed themselves in danger for people who'd neither know nor care, and for - so far as he'd been able to determine - no financial gain.

Harlock was speaking again. 'What I don't get is what you get out of this. Any military or commercial application for zero point energy would be years away - decades at best. Your cabal are in business for fast turnaround.'

'The Counts Mecha can understand the basic idea of investment.' Lazarus countered, sidestepping the question.

Harlock didn't miss a beat. 'So it's personal?'

Zephyr couldn't miss the slight flinch from Lazarus at that.

Neither did Harlock, who continued: 'You have my brother's memories and personality, and he could never really lie worth a damn. He was also never fond of taking orders from anyone, unless it was a means to an end - one of the things we had in common. Kind of runs in the family… so before you either shoot me or push me off, I'd like to know what it is Zera Sender has on you that is so important you'd sell him what passes for your soul?'

'Would you let me walk away if I tell you?' Lazarus laughed harshly. 'I didn't think so. For someone who's got the reputation of being a rebel, a pirate and an anti-establishment pest, you are - and always were - too honourable for your own good.'

'You're the de facto leader of a major criminal enterprise with some very nasty sidelines. The illegality of your operation doesn't really offend me. Arms trading to the Machine Empire and slave trading are what put you in my gunsights.'

'Boyscout,' Lazarus sneered. 'Still a snivelling bleeding heart who wants to save the world? You couldn't save mother… or Nami. I don't see humanity revelling in the freedom of green worlds free from the fear of the evil machine men stealing their children to drain them of their lifeforce, do you?'

Zephyr felt a flicker of sympathy for Harlock as he saw that barb hit home. 'Are you ever getting to the point before I die of boredom listening to you?'

'I just need the secret to the cell line used for that boy, and I know that ties in to the vacuum energy experiments Westwind were conducting. Image the potential, Yama. Bodies as close to human as makes no difference - capable of even reproducing, with a little help, and functionally immortal…'

The choking sound Harlock made needed little interpretation. 'Have you learned nothing from Promethium's mistakes? You'd exchange one evolutionary dead end for another… and humans… we just aren't ready for immortality. You'd create another machine war!'

'Not I,' Lazarus replied coldly. 'My deal is for two bodies. Two shells, and my interest in this is over.'

'Two? How many of you does this universe need…' Harlock's voice trailed away into a horrified silence. 'You wouldn't…'

Lazarus, even in profile, displayed a certain smug satisfaction. 'Her memory print was housed in her life support capsule, and before you tear a strip off me, I had no idea we were being used as guinea pigs, baby brother. Zera has it, and that's my price for serving him.'

Harlock, still all too aware of the fact the Zephyr was watching from the doorway, shifted his grip slightly on the trigger. The Cosmo Dragoon had a responsive, but far from hair-trigger pull, but with Lazarus' reflexes, the margin wasn't something he wanted to test. Not if it left the boy exposed and unprotected.

He took a step back, and lowered the pistol, noting the expression in the copy of his brother's eye as he did so - a momentary flicker of amusement, and that cynical, triumphant curl of the corner of his mouth that accompanied it.  _Just like that_ , he thought, shifting his weight slightly, as imperceptibly as he could.  _You just keep thinking I'm that fucking dumb_ … 'Nami won't thank you for it. You think she wanted to live in a  _box_ for the rest of her life? And you'd make that permanent?'

'It's not a box,' Lazarus replied, as though explaining the obvious to a small child. 'Any more than this is…' he raised his left hand and spread the fingers, before closing it into a fist. 'Any more than the flesh sack you still wear is. We'll think, and feel, and love…'

'It's an illusion,' Harlock snapped. 'We're born unique, it's a one time deal. Not even identical twins have the same soul so what makes clones - or sexaroid copies - any different? Isora and Nami  _died_ seven years ago - no matter what memories you have, you'll always be a different person, building on those events and the pain that came before them.'

'How would you know?' Lazarus took a step towards him, his pistol still held unflinchingly aimed at Harlock's head. 'I wasn't aware dark matter had any intelligence enhancing properties. Quite the opposite. You don't know what it is to be me.'

'No,' Harlock interjected softly. 'No, I don't. You didn't ask for this, I know. But you made poor choices. You chose to become what you are, to do what you do. You choose every day to hurt people who you should protect. And I find myself asking where the hell that comes from. Before the accident Isora was a reserved, but kind young man. A little stiff, but he cared. About me. About Nami.' He shook his head sadly. 'I thought I understood his anger…But he deliberately withheld the fact that I wasn't the one responsible for that explosion, and that crossed a line. For eight years he let me believe that I'd half-killed and permanently maimed the only two people I cared about.' He lifted his chin defiantly to stare Lazarus in the eye. 'Eight years twisting me into something even I despised by the end. When even certain death trying to assassinate the most notorious pirate in history seemed like a better option than living. And everything you are - everything you will  _ever_ be from the point you were created - is rooted in that spite, in that cruelty.'

Lazarus' smile spread across his face like a snake. 'Don't you want to know why?' He laughed again, coldly. 'Do you ever ask yourself that, snuggled up against your icy-eyed whore on board that haunted abomination?'

Not even Zephyr's enhanced senses caught the movement that brought Harlock's pistol to bear. He shot from the hip seemingly without aiming, and Lazarus' pistol span from suddenly nerveless fingers, skittering across the debris on the roof in a shower of red droplets. Lazarus let out a cry and clutched the injured hand to his breast, glaring at the pirate with murderous intent. Harlock continued the move that brought his pistol back in line with Lazarus' left eye. 'You don't insult Kei.  _Count_. Now I'm done playing games. Turn around and place your hands on your head, fingers laced.'

Lazarus obeyed, slowly, but his turn brought his good eye into position to see Zephyr peeping out from behind the door. 'Trying to distract me so that I wouldn't spot your new stray before your friend found one of our hover-platforms to come to your rescue?'

'The thing with bad guys? They like to talk. Blaze?'

'Almost with you. Dad's got the interface working but you need to get off there before the emitter goes online.'

'Harlock.' Zephyr stepped out from behind the door. 'He's right. You can't be up here. The zero point energy will be pouring out of that array once it starts transmitting.'

Harlock's attention flickered for an instant, no longer, in the direction of the boy, but against a synthetic that momentary lapse might as well have been a minute. Lazarus moved so quickly that Harlock's instinctive shot fizzled harmlessly over his right shoulder, and he'd grabbed Zephyr by the collar of Harlock's absurdly oversized jacket before the pirate could stop him. He pushed the boy ahead of him, kicking, struggling and swearing, until they were on the very edge of the roof. 'Now what, Yama? Do you think you can save him? I'm more than happy to pick up the pieces at the bottom. You, I think, not so much. You can try to stop me but we both know you'll fail. So I think we'll just make the decision for you, shall we?' He let go of the thick collar, and gave the boy a kick.

Harlock dove for the edge of the roof, ignoring Lazarus' laughter as he slid along the rough surface, the debris ripping the remains of the thin coveralls and repeating the favour with his skin. He caught the thin wrist of the small android with his fingers, and held on for dear life as the weight of the boy's body almost pulled his shoulder out of its socket. 'Zephyr!'

'It's okay, Harlock.' the little boy sounded abnormally calm. 'He's right. I can be repaired. You can just pick…'

'Not happening.' Harlock tried to get a better grip, and swore under his breath as he slipped a little further over the ledge, with nothing to hold onto. The boy twisted in his grip and strong, but small fingers locked into a vice-like grip around his wrist. He didn't doubt the kid could hold on, but for him to hold the weight of a synthetic body was another matter entirely. 'Can you get a better grip and haul yourself over me?'

'Not unless I dig holes right into you with my fingers,' the boy replied. Despite his bravado over his ability to repair, he sounded, to Harlock's ears, not unlike his twins when they'd got stuck somewhere they shouldn't.

'Blaze?'

'Coming… just a few seconds. If I can shake the dialhead shooting at me!'

Harlock wasn't sure he had a few seconds. He thought frantically, trying to visualise his situation. It wasn't the first time he'd been stuck on a climb like this, and there were ways to wriggle… He leaned further over and held out his other arm. 'Zephyr? Can you grab my other hand?' The boy's other hand was clinging to a small piece of rebar sticking out of the plascrete, which Harlock guessed was probably the only reason they hadn't just gone straight over.

'If I do you won't be able to hold me!'

'Let me worry about that. I want you to reach up and grab my hand when I tell you, and we're going to swing you towards the wall. Put your feet out, kick as hard as you can and try to swing upwards - let your momentum flip you up if you can, I'll do my best to guide you.'

'But…'

'No argument, kiddo. Argue afterwards, okay?'

'Okay.' Zephyr's voice had lost most of his bravado by now.

Harlock gritted his teeth against the pain of the rubble and metal digging into his unprotected torso. 'Now!'

Someone screamed as he rolled, two small hands in his, and the tearing pop he swore he heard as his left shoulder gave way in protest at treatment it wasn't designed to withstand suggested it was him. It was fast, brutal and painful and flinging the boy onto the roof and hearing him smack down with a heavy thud was not, he thought, as he looked up at the grey sky, something he ever wanted to hear again.

Then the sky was slipping, and there was not even the slightest chance of arresting his slide over the edge of the roof, where his roll and taken him. He could hear the tell-tale  _szzzzap_ of a blaster at close range, see a flash of gold light, and hear the hum of a platform - above him, his brain informed him.

 _Kei…_ He remembered: brass armoured fingers gripping his arm tightly, and flipping him over to land on his arse on the ramp of the Arcadia's hangar deck, so many years ago.

He stared up into a face surrounded this time not by long golden hair, but by a curling mass of rat-tailed dreadlocks, surrounding an impish grin below a long thin nose. The eyes however were a similar cobalt blue.

He couldn't take the offered hand, and it was Blaze who had to help him to his feet and onto the hover platform, where all he could do was slump on the floor against the rails and hold the little boy tightly with the one arm still working, as Zephyr demonstrated that in the aftermath of being faced with almost certain death or dismemberment, even androids can sniffle.


	9. Chapter 9

Pryder stared at the screen in front of him and swore. 'Seriously? Laz, you're an idiot every day of the week - could you not take one off?' He waited until Lazarus' hover platform dived offscreen and pushed himself out of his chair. On the way out of the room he grabbed his guitar from its place propped up against the door. 'Makes me so glad I'm an only child…' he muttered, eliciting a startled stare from the twin-dialled ovoid of the machine at the door. 'You - any siblings before you turned yourself into a walking egg?' he was already striding down the corridor before the machinner could answer. 'Probably not. Birth rates being what they are… But our illustrious leader out there? A walking talking advert for a one-child policy. I think I'd probably like Harlock, if we weren't on different teams, but then, I suppose I wasn't the one competing with him for mommy and daddy's attention for years. Do keep up!' he called back over his shoulder. 'It's starting to look as if it's up to us to rescue what's left of this mission before it goes  _completely_ tits up!' He thrust his guitar into the machinner's spindly, three fingered hands. 'Take this to the shuttle, tell your compatriot waiting for us to prep for immediate launch when myself and Count Lazarus arrive.' He beckoned to the other mechanoid trailing along in his wake, blast rifles held across their chests. 'You - with me.'

He caught up with Lazarus, his collar length hair in disarray and his jacket sporting scorch marks, striding back towards the control centre with a scowl like a small thundercloud plastered across his face. 'Where the hell are you going?' he snapped.

Pryder waited until he fell in beside him before answering. 'Getting us out of this shitstorm,' he replied calmly. 'Before Zero's spawn flies your brother down here, we'll grab that control ball and deal with Zero and the girl. We shoot Zero, grab the girl and with her as a hostage, Zero's son and Harlock won't dare interfere with an orderly - and I stress "orderly" - retreat to the shuttle. Any objections?'

'One. Shoot the girl, use Zero as a hostage,' Lazarus shot back. 'The little red-haired bitch is far more dangerous. Zero might hesitate to kill us. She won't.'

'She's worth more,' Pryder added slyly, with a sideways glance at his partner. Lazarus merely grunted. 'She's really rather lovely…' he added wistfully.

'So are several species of venomous snakes,' Lazarus replied dryly. 'But you wouldn't stick any part of your anatomy you were fond of in one. I wouldn't recommend it, Pryder. She's her mother's daughter and the apples didn't fall far from that tree.'

Pryder had to lengthen his stride to keep up with the taller man - Lazarus was a couple of inches taller than Pryder's mere six foot, and had at least an inch on Harlock. He also liked to stride out, but given he'd spent eight years in a hoverchair, Pryder tended to cut him some slack on that point. 'Hah. From the eternal virgin…' he smiled beatifically in reply to the venomous look Lazarus gave him. 'And yet, there's something about that kind of fire in a woman…'

Lazarus snorted. 'You'll get your head sliced off one day amazon-chasing. Or something lower down.'

'Some of us like a little spirit,' Pryder retorted with a grin. 'I've seen your type. I'd be bored stiff in a week.'

Lazarus stopped in his tracks just before the turn off for the main control room, one hand raised. Pryder only just avoided running into his broad back. 'If you think Nami was meek and shy, you didn't know her very well.'

'That wasn't what I said. We were in the same bloody class at school for eight years, Laz. She was sweet, pretty and quiet, and had a stubborn streak that'd do credit to both you and your little brother - she'd bloody well have to to put up with the pair of you. But I prefer a lass who'd come out swinging rather than one who'd pull an end run around me if she thought I was being a dick. I like to see trouble coming. Why have we stopped? We're three against two for crying out loud.'

'Because,' Lazarus explained patiently, 'That damned ball is hovering just around the corner, and it looks pissed…'

* * *

Zero stepped back from the main console with a sigh of relief. 'Looks stable enough, although how long that gives us is anyone's guess.' He thumbed his commlink. 'Marin?'

'Here, dad. Looks good from this end. We've set marker buoys and informed the locals, such as they are. The  _Prometheus_ arrived about five minutes ago - seems they were getting into it with some Doppler Corp ships not too far away and redlined it to get here. Hank and Dan are on the ground already, came in whilst Harlock was getting into it with Lazarus.'

'How did that play out?'

Marin's voice held a touch of wry humour. 'About as well as you'd expect. The bastard tried to throw that little boy off the roof, and Harlock's sporting a dislocated shoulder for his trouble. Lazarus got away, he headed back your way. Dan's got Blaze and Harlock, and they're coming in after him. Watch yourself - this bastard doesn't object to a scorched earth…'

'I know,' Zero replied coldly, remembering the bodies found in the Count's headquarters on Metabloody. Whilst he'd seen slaughter on a scale unprecedented in the past thousand years during the early years of the machine war, the callous disregard for human life was something he could never understand. Or forgive. Lazarus had ordered the murder of over fifty people simply to stick it to Harlock. 'Ask Dan to send down a squad of Grenadiers to secure the facility. It'll need to be held until the relief ships get here.'

'Will do. Oh - Hannibal's en route - should be here within the next hour.'

'That was fast…' Zero murmured. 'One of these days I'm going to have to pin that guy down on where he got that ship…'

Marin laughed. 'Yeah. Good luck with that. Gotta go - there's a lot to coordinate up here. The sooner you lot are back on board, the happier I'll be. I'd hate to be the one to tell mum I let something happen to any of you…'

Zero cut the connection, with a fond smile. 'How the hell the pair of them grew up so damned normal remains a mystery,' he murmured. 'Emeraldas - any activity?'

'Two pairs of boots and a dialhead heading this way. Guessing Lazarus and his entourage.' She rechecked the power levels on her pistol. 'You know, I could just…'

'Wait, Em. Don't go looking for trouble. It's got a bad habit of finding you as it is.' Zero took up a position next to her, against the opposite door frame. 'Blaze? Can you step lively son and get your arse in here? We've got company.' He grinned at the pithy reply from his commlink. 'Manners, young man!' He checked the sights on his borrowed pistol. 'He's on his way. We should be able to hold them off until…'

The hovering motherball shot past him at head-height, and whizzed off down the corridor before he could do more than blink. 'Oh for fuck's sake…  _another_ hothead?' He clicked off the safety and ran after it, shouting at Emeraldas to hold the room over his shoulder.

* * *

Zero caught up with the machine ball just as Lazarus stuck his head back round the corner to take another look, and his shot scorched the wall next to the synth's head a fraction of a second behind the ball's glowing plasma. It was gratifying to watch the smug bastard jerk backwards with a heartfelt curse to avoid a red hot chip of plascrete slicing into his face.

'What the hell were you thinking?' he asked the ball, which just pulsed at him. He sighed. 'I get it. He attacked your little boy?' The lights blinked at him.

'Zero!' Lazarus, Zero reflected, had a voice that grated on the nerves. At once imperious and smarmy. Not his favourite combination.

'Not happening!' he shouted back. An attempt to pull or push the ball into the safety of a sideroom failed. The ball hovered in place resisting his attempt to guide it.

'I haven't made any demands yet,' Lazarus called back, sounding amused.

'I'm sure you meant to say "requests",' Zero replied. 'But the answer is still "no"'. For good measure he fired at the wall at the end of the corridor to make it clear to the synth he should stay safely behind the wall.

'No… no, I'm pretty sure I didn't…' Lazarus returned fire, the blaster bolt slamming harmlessly into the wall as though to make the point that two could play the stand-off game. Underneath Zero's free hand the ball buzzed angrily. 'You can walk out of here, Zero. I just want the ball and the boy. Play nice and I'll even let my brother live.'

'No negotiation, Lazarus. You and your friends throw your weapons over here and step out with your hands up, and I'll just hand you over to the SDF, who, by the way, just landed. I'm sure Colonel Ichimonji would love to see you again.' Under his breath he muttered: 'Boreas? Let it go. Do you want to end up in pieces?'

Behind their cover, Pryder tapped Lazarus on the shoulder. 'Or we could just turn round and walk away,' he whispered into Lazarus' ear. Lazarus flicked a hand at him as though brushing away a fly.

'He's stalling for time,' Lazarus said smoothly. 'Pryder - just how strong is this wall?'

Pryder stared at the corridor wall and frowned. 'Just plasterboard over thin plascrete. Standard internal walling for ease of remodelling…' he grinned as he realised Lazarus' plan. 'Oh… I see… There's a room behind there should be right next to them, judging from the angle of that shot…' He gestured to the mech next to him. 'You - quietly - on my command, cut through as fast as you can. Laz?'

'I'll distract him. You charge from the side. Just put him down.'

'And the girl?'

'She's guarding the room, but she'll come running.' Lazarus' lip curled into a sneer. 'They always do.'

'The ball?'

'I'll try to cripple it. There's no way of knowing if it will defend them or not, but I'd rather not take the chance. Ready?'

Pryder nodded, and moved to stand behind the machinner which held out its hand, a laser cutter protruding from the wrist.

* * *

Blaze knelt next to Harlock, nibbling on his bottom lip as he gently lifted the dislocated arm. 'I can try to put it back for you, but maybe you should just put it in a sling and wait for the doc to sort it… I could tear something...'

'Just go for it, Blaze,' Harlock told him through gritted teeth. 'I've had worse and it's not as though it's the first time…'

'Dangling off buildings and cliffs will do that,' Blaze twitted him, trying not to look at the bulging joint. 'Fine - but don't sue me if this doesn't work. Brace yourself…' Harlock glared at him with both eyes, the eyepatch having gotten lost somewhere between being dragged across a roof and almost falling off the building.

Zephyr, watching from the sidelines, stepped forwards and tapped Blaze on the shoulder. 'You're right. You shouldn't do it - but I've got the strength and I can see the tissues.'

'X-ray vision, huh?' Harlock asked him, his voice sounding strained. He smiled up at the android. 'Blaze - let him try. He's right - it needs a good strong jerk and…'

'You're just  _a_ jerk?'

The deep, slightly gravelly voice was familiar to both men, who turned their attention to the man walking towards them from behind Blaze. Zephyr took the opportunity granted by Harlock's momentary distraction to lift, twist and push the offending joint back into place, ignoring the pained, sustained grunt that the man let out. Harlock looked pale and was sweating, but the ugly bulge at the end of his collarbone was gone, although the skin looked swollen and bruised. He patted Harlock's limp hand gently and watched the newcomer warily.

There were six men and three women, most of them young, all of them wearing a dark blue uniform. The speaker was the man in the lead. Zephyr judged him to be a few inches taller than Harlock or Blaze, broader across the chest than both men, and perhaps ten years older. Dark brown hair curled down to the top of his collar and had a tendency to fall over his face as he walked. His mouth - rather thin-lipped over a hard jaw - was mostly hidden by a luxurious long moustache. His eyes were dark brown and narrow, the whole giving him a hard, grim expression.

This was broken by the wide smile he gave the extended index finger Blaze flipped him. 'Nice to see you too,' he added as he drew close. 'Harlock - just let it out - no-one cares if you scream like a girl and you'll feel better.'

Harlock snorted. 'Seriously? This from the man who practically embodies the meaning of his surname?'

Blaze just grinned up and said 'Hi Dan. What kept you? And was that you trying to be funny? You really need to work on that...'

'Cheeky bastard. A pity you decided against a military career. I'd have loved to knock you into shape.'

'Why do you think I'd prefer to stay civvy-side?' Blaze replied dryly.

'Can we get the back-slapping out of the way so someone can help me up?' Harlock asked. He waved off Zephyr's attempt to help him. 'Sorry, you're a little short. But thanks for the shoulder, Zephyr.'

The soldier strode past Zephyr to Harlock's side, not sparing more than a brief glance at the boy. 'Here.' He placed Harlock's good arm around his shoulders and straightened, letting the pirate use him to brace against. 'Would it kill you to come back from one of these trips in one piece for once? Kei can get a little shrill when she sees the state of you, and tends to start blaming whoever's nearest before they can get to a distance far enough away to spare their hearing…'

Harlock leaned against the older man wearily. 'Why is it everyone's more afraid of Kei than…' He saw the looks on the faces of his friends and sighed. 'Never mind…' He looked down at Zephyr, who was staring warily at Dan and edging behind Harlock, his hands raised palms out at chest height in the direction of the SDF group. 'Stand down, Zephyr. These are friends. This long tall glass of water is my second cousin - or something similar. Colonel Ichimonji Dantetsu, captain of the SDF battleship  _Prometheus_ , and he's here to help.'

'You're always so sure of that…' Dan replied, his dry delivery somewhat spoiled by a warm smile that softened his usual grim mien. 'Another waif and stray?'

'No-one you need to worry yourself about, Dan,' Harlock told him bluntly, a protective arm around the boy's shoulder.

'Really?' Ichimonji's right eyebrow almost vanished into his fringe. 'I just saw what  _looks_ like an eight year old boy put your shoulder back in… Want to explain that one?'

'If that pistol so much as clears your holster in his direction, Harlock replied smoothly, with a deliberate glare at the offending article, 'then mine will be clearing in  _your_ direction.' When Ichimonji removed his hand from the pistol butt he grinned at him. 'Attaboy.' His grin grew even wider as Ichimonji narrowed his eyes and a slight tic appeared at the corner of one almond-shaped eye before he turned sharply on his heel with parade-ground precision and barked out an order to his squad.

'You can be such an arse,' Blaze murmured in his ear as he fell in beside the pirate. 'One of these days he'll arrest you just to teach you a lesson.'

'He can try,' Harlock replied affably. 'I fight dirty. He doesn't.'

'He's got a squad of Space Panzer Grenadiers,' Blaze pointed out in his most reasonable tone.

'Who are currently flanking us, and therefore going to shoot each other when we duck,' Harlock replied, matching his tone. One of those grenadiers choked on a snigger as Ichimonji shot the pair a glare over one shoulder.

'You do know I'm not deaf?' Ichimonji's tones, by comparison, could sharpen tectite. Somewhere near Harlock's waist Zephyr giggled.

'Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to listen to other people's conversations?' Blaze asked with a wink at the little boy.

'You're a bad influence on that young man,' Ichimonji growled.

'Who? Me?' Both Blaze and Harlock replied in unison. Even the squad accompanying them were trying to hide their amusement by this time. Ichimonji, although respected, wasn't much of a people person. Something Harlock generally felt rather relieved had skipped  _his_ side of the gene pool… A sly grin snuck past his defences as he imagined the Arcadia's original captain spending any time with Ichimonji.  _Oh to be a fly on the wall for that one_ …

'What's so funny?' Blaze stage-whispered as they strode briskly towards the control centre.

'Nothing I can explain unless you knew my -  _our_ \- ancestor,' Harlock whispered back, with a nod in the direction of Ichimonji's ramrod straight back.

They were still several feet away from the facility when an exchange of gunfire brought their already hyper alert companions to combat ready positions.

* * *

When the machinner stepped away from the opening it had cut in the wall, Pryder took a deep, totally unnecessary breath before asking 'what are you waiting for?'

'Wondering why it's always us you make go first,' it snapped back in a waspish, metallic voice. 'I've lost six comrades already today but I don't see you skinjobs sticking your necks out. And in case you hadn't noticed, it's Harlock and Zero out there…'

'Actually it's Zero and that annoying redhead,' Pryder replied smoothly. 'And the reason you get to go first would be because we're in command of this little operation - you're hired muscle. So to speak.'

The blank ovoid faces of the lower castes of machinner soldiers were not designed to be expressive, but it was, Pryder thought with a hidden smile, amazing just how much emotion one large dial over a small round mouth could express at times. This one almost radiated disgruntlement. 'Bloody skins,' he heard it mutter as it elbowed its way past him, forcing him to take a step back. 'Think they're so fucking superior…'

'Yeah yeah,' Pryder replied drolly to its skinny back. 'The poor bleeding infantry… suck it up, lube-breath. You're getting your colleagues' share of their pay now after all.' The electronic tone he got in reply didn't need any translation. He followed the mech to the far door, which was hanging at an angle that would have made even the most avant garde architect cry. 'Laz? I have eyeballs on Zero's position. Emeraldas is in the doorway, Zero slightly to your left, the ball's in front of them.'

'Let's finish this,' came Lazarus' voice over their internal comms. Pryder smiled grimly and took a firmer grip on his pistol. 'Now!'

Things might, Pryder reflected as he went flying only seconds later, under the not inconsiderable weight of the dialhead he'd sent first, have gone a lot better if he actually had any skill with weapons. Unlike Lazarus he'd been a singer before the war, not a soldier. He couldn't even hit the broadside of the Capital's main thoroughfare on a good day, let alone a fast moving target. That he'd been distracted when she'd turned and snapped off a shot from the hip he couldn't have made in his dreams to shoot his machinner companion, long red hair flowing over a magnificent expanse of cleavage like a river of flame…

Amazing arse as well, he thought from his position on the floor, the machinner smoking on top of him, a smoking hole where its chest - and brain-unit - had once been. It still twitched occasionally as he watched Emeraldas, Zero and Lazarus exchange fire. He found himself wondering idly if it would be possible to get himself downloaded into a more two dimensional form… for instance, intelligent fabric. A lifetime spent moulded to those curves would almost be worth it… And those  _legs_ …

'Are you ever planning to get off your arse and lend a hand?' Lazarus had a tendency to shout when annoyed, and Pryder had to dial down his internal comms to compensate. 'Will you for Earth's sake just shoot them in the back already?'

'I'm pinned under our mech friend,' he pointed out on the private channel.

'You're a machine yourself, you dithering idiot! You can move it with one pinky finger!'

 _Not without drawing the attention of that red-haired valkyrie with the awe-inspiring rack and the legs he just knew would wrap right around him_ … He wisely kept that thought to himself, and pushed the mech's body off him. Once free he scrabbled around and his fingers closed on the butt of the pistol he'd dropped when he'd been unceremoniously flattened.

'I wouldn't.' The voice had a gravelly baritone and appeared to be related to the cold pistol jammed into his left ear. 'Now I know your kind have distributed consciousness, but losing your head would still cause you problems. Drop the weapon.'

Pryder let his pistol fall from his hand, and a shiny black boot kicked it away. 'Lazarus?' he sent over the internal link. The gunfire had stopped.

'Distract them, Pryder. I don't care how you do it. I have to have that ball at least.'

Boots tramped past him, heading down the corridor towards Lazarus' position. Pryder, from his half-kneeling position, stared up into the face of the man holding a gun on him. Tall, dark, handsome, and bearing an definite resemblance (under a truly impressive lip-ferret) to Lazarus. 'Colonel Ichimonji, I presume?' he said lightly. 'Any chance you could help me up?'

'No.'

'So rude.' He staggered to his feet under the sights of a hand cannon that looked as though it could take down an elephant.

'So under arrest,' Ichimonji replied tersely. 'Turn around, hands over your head, fingers laced. Legs spread.'

'Well that's not a request I get every day,' he replied with a smirk. 'Maybe if the lovely Emeraldas asked me though…'

One hand - large enough to dwarf his more elegant appendage - pulled one arm down and snapped a cuff around his wrist. Pryder risked a glance towards the crossroads, where he could see the small android running towards Zero and his floating ball. He lowered his head to hide a half smile.

It was the work of a moment to turn, bodyslam the burly colonel, grab his weapon and fire. He didn't have a prayer of hitting a small moving target, but then, he didn't have to, and none of them knew that. He heard Ichimonji call out a warning. Something slammed into his side, causing him to fall against the nearest wall, his second shot going wide of the mark. He threw himself sideways, rolling into the sideroom, out of the line of fire, and unable to see what happened next.

A childish, high pitched scream of "mother!" reached him. He didn't wait to see what was happening. Datavising a suggestion to Lazarus to make a run for it, Pryder scrambled to his feet and headed back the way he'd come. Lazarus was staggering down the corridor, bleeding from a head wound and with several new scorch marks on his jacket.

'The shuttle?' Pryder shouted, not bothering with the comms.

'Outside!' Lazarus grabbed him as he stumbled. 'Give me that!' he snatched the weapon from Pryder's hand and fired several shots at the ceiling, collapsing it behind them as they ran.


	10. Chapter 10

_The "two-part finale…"_

_(Back-to-back badass colonels by special request…!)_

_For (as always!) Pollywantsa, for encouragement, support, comments both funny and incisive, and generally for just being there. Thanks, mate!_

* * *

Emeraldas looked up into the blue eyes of the man who wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and smiled weakly. 'Any sign yet of the others?' she asked. Henry Douglas, colonel (SDF) shook his head and ran a hand through his barely regulation collar-length blond hair.

'We've got five life signs under there. Unfortunately - or fortunately depending on your point of view - they're concentrated in one small area. The unfortunate part is that that's the point where the bulk of the building collapsed. It's going to take a couple of hours to shift the rubble - the whole structure's unstable.' He glanced over to where Harlock was sitting on a plascrete boulder, one of the  _Prometheus'_ med techs hovering on one side, and Blaze clucking over him like a mother hen on the other. Both men were covered in blood and dust, and Harlock's borrowed coveralls were in tatters. Harlock waved away the tech with a vague smile, and Douglas sauntered over to him, wincing as he saw the faces of the bodies on the ground. Three of the SPG team hadn't made it. 'You two were lucky - another couple of yards…'

'Only because I was slowing them down,' Harlock replied flatly. He shivered in the thin drizzle that had begun to fall, and Douglas called one of his people over to fetch some warm clothes. Someone had obviously gotten ahead of him there, as a young med tech trotted over with a set of heavy duty coveralls from the shuttle's supply cabinet, and looked on admiringly as - with Blaze's help, the young pirate stripped off what was left of his rags and dressed as quickly as he could. Douglas eyed him up and down with a rather less prurient agenda, and winced at the assorted cuts and bruises the pirate's slim body carried.

'You should let someone take you back topside,' he told Harlock bluntly. 'Either  _Prometheus_ or the  _Futatsuboshi_ , I don't care which. You're no use to anyone in this state.'

'They're my friends,' Harlock replied with equal bluntness. Douglas was easily the same height as Ichimonji, so staring into his eyes required a strain on an already stiff neck.

'Dan's like a brother to me and I've known Rei longer than you have,' Douglas replied firmly. 'Get some rest and a shower - not necessarily in that order. You're barely able to stand.' He turned to Blaze. 'And that goes for you too. I know he's your father, but we've got our best team searching the rubble, and they're professionals. Let them do their job.'

Unlike Ichimonji, he was a friendly, open man and his reassuring smile was both genuine and impossible for either of the younger men not to respond to. Blaze sat down on the same piece of rubble Harlock had found to park his backside and stared glumly at the wreckage. 'I hate just sitting around like a spare part, but be damned if I'm going back to the ship to do the same, since I know damn well Mal will only make me go and lie down.'

'He should,' Harlock replied quietly. 'You're bleeding.'

Blaze reached up to touch the sticky mass of his fringe and pulled his fingers away. He stared at his bloodied fingertips. 'Huh. Thought it stung a bit…'

'You got hit by a flying chunk of plascrete.' Harlock called over a hovering medtech and over-rode Blaze's emphatic muttering that he was perfectly fine. 'You're not fine, your pupils don't look too equal to me…' Blaze flinched as the tech shone a light into his eyes.

'Just a bit bloodshot,' the tech told them. 'But you've got a nasty cut and an egg sized lump on your head. You're out of this whether you like it or not.' He smiled as Blaze started to slump against Harlock until his head rested on the other man's shoulder. 'Cute… but don't let him fall asleep. The shuttle's gone back to the  _Prometheus_ with the critically wounded we pulled out, but I'll get him on the next one.'

Harlock would have nodded his thanks but Blaze's head was in the way. He gave his friend a slight nudge. 'Oi… no sleeping…'

'Not sleeping,' Blaze replied wearily. 'Just resting my eyes. Though you're kind of bony…'

'Well he's  _not_ pillowing on  _me_ ,' Emeraldas sniped from near Harlock's other shoulder. She stood with her arms folded across her bosom, glaring at the rubble as though just hating it hard enough could make it go away. 'What's taking them so long?'

'I know you were listening, so that just  _has_ to be a rhetorical question,' Harlock replied in his best don't-fuck-with-me drawl. Emeraldas gave him a filthy look, a disdainful sniff, and sat down beside him, fiddling with the butt of her pistol. She didn't bother flicking the lock of hair that fell over her face out of the way whilst she stared at the working techs busy shifting rubble away carefully, so Harlock did it for her, and smiled to himself when she leaned back slightly against him. He placed his free arm around her and gave her a quick hug, ignored Blaze's stifled, startled snort, and winced as his recently abused shoulder protested. 'You really do like to live dangerously,' Blaze murmured into Harlock's ear. 'Fond of that arm?'

'Bite me, Blaze,' Emeraldas replied, more from habit than genuine annoyance.

'Not today, cuz, I haven't had my shots…' Blaze quipped.

She stuck her tongue out at him and he laughed, albeit a little listlessly.

'Play nice, children,' Harlock advised the pair. He sat up a little straighter when he saw Douglas place a hand to his earpiece, then point and shout out an order. 'Something's up!' Douglas was already sprinting away from the scene, his long legs carrying him at an impressive pace. 'Now where's he off to in such a hurry?' Blaze was struggling to his feet and Harlock had to follow suit to catch him before he toppled over, leaving Emeraldas to field him in her turn.

'Why don't  _I_  go and ask?' she said, already moving before either her cousin or her occasional captain could do so.

'Are we that decrepit?' Harlock asked Blaze, as the latter sat back down again.

'Worn out and past it according to her,' Blaze replied a little listlessly. 'Damn… I hope dad's okay under that…'

Emeraldas started to wave frantically at them. 'They've got Uncle Rei and the little boy!' she shouted. 'Pulling them out now!'

'Oh, thank Lar for that...' Blaze sagged on his rocky seat, elbows resting on his knees, head drooping. Harlock narrowed his eyes and peered at the scene with a small frown hovering between his eyebrows. 'Yeah… But what about Dan?' he muttered under his breath. One of the techs, in the process of trotting back to their position grinned at him as she overheard.

'Colonel's fine - he was just past the point of the worst of it when the ceiling fell in behind him. Seems he's gone chasing after those two skin jobs,' she said. 'Colonel Douglas has gone after him. At least I assume that's what "Oh for fuck's sake, not again…" loosely translated to as he took off.' When Harlock didn't show any signs of moving to follow the lanky colonel, she peered up into his eyes. 'Not planning on following? I mean, we all know you and Lazarus have a history...'

'The speed Douglas took off at?' He shook his head and smiled weakly. 'If those two can't catch a synth on foot, I've got no chance.' His frown deepened momentarily then cleared. 'I do have an idea though. If you can make sure someone sits on  _that_ hothead…' he pointed to where Blaze sat, now, in defiance of her previous edict, leaning against Emeraldas' shoulder, 'there is somewhere I need to be where I can do a little good…'

* * *

Zero had expected the entire ceiling to come down upon his unprotected head when he'd dived over the little android to protect him, as the boy rushed past him intent on reaching his motherball. As a father, it had been instinctive, if, he thought wryly, somewhat pointless since they'd have both been buried and crushed by the debris.

And the light at the end of the tunnel was a reddish colour, and surrounded both of them, enough for him to see that the roof was being held away from his head by a flickering forcefield that barely reached past the toes of his boots. Hardly the stuff of legends of near-death experiences, he reflected. Underneath him, the little boy coughed and then wriggled. He heard a muffled but defiant "gerroff, ya big bugger…" and grinned.

'Well that's gratitude for you,' he murmured. 'A little patience please, young man. I'm not sure how far your mama's forcefield goes.'

There was a momentary pause, then: 'You've got about a foot above yer head,' Zephyr replied eventually, sounding a little contrite. 'But only a couple of inches to either side, so I guess I'm staying put.'

'I rather think we both are,' Zero replied quietly. A trickle of dust slithered over and down the curve of the forcefield, and became a stream of larger pebbles that clattered to the already rubble-strewn ground in front of him. The motherball was lying a few inches in front of his nose, glowing fitfully, sputtering like a guttering candle. 'How long can she last?' he asked. There was a long pause.

'Not long,' was Zephyr's soft reply. 'She could normally draw on the zero point energy, but she was damaged in the fall, and she's maintaining this shield all the way back to where some of your other people are hurt.' Another long pause. 'Zero?'

'Yes?'

'Thanks.'

'Thank me if we get out of here. You said some of the SDF were behind us?'

'Three I think. One's hurt pretty bad mother says. But there's not much she can do beyond put out a signal. There's someone digging though. I can hear it.'

'Anyone there?' a voice called out, muted by the rubble. Zero lifted his head as far as he could and tried to clear his dry, dusty throat.

'Here!' he called back.

'Hang on, sir - we're on our way. Just don't move around too much, okay? It's a bit unstable.'

Another fall of dust slithered over the forcefield in a sparkle of twinkling pinpricks. 'You don't say,' Zero drawled under his breath, eliciting a small giggle from his charge. He settled back down again to wait, understanding Harlock's apparently irrational dislike of buildings falling on him more with every passing minute...

* * *

Under normal circumstances the chances of keeping up with - or catching up to - fleeing synths were slim to none, even for a man who made it a habit to run most of the length of a rugby pitch with two burly props hanging from his shorts for the final fifteen yards and still make it across the line in a time some sprinters could only dream of. They didn't need to breathe more than a couple of times a minute; he did. But over uneven ground, without a clear, straight run… Even androids have to scramble over piles of rubble and can lose their footing.

And those chances shoot up astronomically if the prey is taken by surprise by the fact that recent tremors had unexpectedly blocked off the route they'd planned to take. Dan ducked behind a plascrete piller with a heartfelt "fuck" as a blaster shot fizzed past his head. He returned fire in the direction of the shot, and was gratified to hear a cry of pain. Risking a quick look, he saw the taller and older looking of the pair stop to help his companion, who had a red stain spreading down his tan pants leg. 'Well that should slow you down a bit,' he muttered. He sent another shot their way but the first had been a fluke - at the current distance - about eighty yards - blaster fire was notoriously inaccurate and he missed Lazarus' head by inches just as the synth hauled his friend into the cover of a large rebar reinforced boulder against the side of a garage.

'Dan?' Henry Douglas' voice was welcome over his commlink, through the static that suggested the receiver had taken a hit from the same rock that had hit his head as he'd launched himself out of the building fractions of a second ahead of the ceiling. 'Status?'

'East side, I've got them pinned down between two storage buildings. I hit the young one in the leg. They're probably calling for backup, Hank - so where's mine?'

'On my way. Keep your head down for once, will you? Doc won't like it if I bring you back with another concussion…'

'Too late for that,' Dantetsu muttered after he cut the connection. He touched the sticky blood already congealing at the back of his head in his long hair. Scalp wounds always bled freely, and this one was no exception. The blood had trailed down his scalp and continued down his neck. He leaned back against the pillar, using his shoulder to lean on, careful to let his head rest against the plascrete gently. Both temples were being pounded by 8lb lumb hammers. 'Fuck.'

A blaster shot dinged a piece of the plascrete off the pillar above his head and he had to jerk his head out of the way of the white-hot material as it almost bounced off his long nose. Douglas slid into cover at his side as a second shot went wide, leaned over his friend and let off a rapid round of covering fire of his own. 'Missed me!' he called out, right next to Dan's ear. He turned his attention to Ichimonji. 'You look like hammered shit…'

'That good?' Dan pushed Henry's attempts to investigate his injury out of the way. 'You fuss worse than my wife. Leave it, I've had worse. Where are the troops?'

'You sound like Harlock…' Henry grinned when Dantetsu flipped him the bird. 'Tied up with the evac and the rescue work. Rei and the boy are still buried, along with three of our guys. Technically we shouldn't even be here - we're  _slightly_ out of our jurisdiction. But Hannibal showed up a few minutes ago with several transports in tow - literally - he's used that ship of his as a bloody monster rig, using the tractor beam, if you can believe that? Anyway, since he sent out a request for aid, we can kind of cover our asses.' Another shot dinged above their heads. 'Do you mind?' he shouted. 'Quality exposition being delivered over here!'

'Oh, well… let me know when you're done,' came the sarcastic response. 'We'll wait…'

Douglas snapped a new energy cartridge into his pistol. 'I really,  _really_ hate that smug bastard… Harlock's gonna give us seven hells for letting him escape.'

' _Us_?'

'You know what I mean.' Douglas looked up into the grey sky, and swore fluently under his breath. 'They've got a shuttle coming in.'

'Relax - they'll have to come out of hiding to get to it - no way in hell it can land between us and them on all that rubble,' Dan told him. He ran a finger around the inside of the stiffened collar of his armoured jacket. 'Bloody things still chafe… what was wrong with the old design?'

'The new helmets don't fit them,' Douglas replied with a grin. 'Not that you'd know… trying to get you to wear one is a waste of time.'

Dan snorted. 'Sayeth the other idiot in the fleet who can't stand to hide his flowing locks… I hate the damned things. Far too claustrophobic since they narrowed the eyeshield.' He placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. 'Help me up.'

'I should leave you here; I'll take any bet you can't see straight.' But he let Dantetsu lean on him - no mean feat since the two were pretty close in height and weight. 'You need to lose a few pounds,' Douglas quipped as Dantetsu straightened and leaned back against the pillar. 'This is getting tougher.'

'Fuck you. At least my flightsuit still fastens up. And you're just getting old.'

Henry Douglas, two months younger than Dan and half a stone lighter, didn't even bother to dignify that one with a reply more involved than a smirk. 'They must have a ship hidden in the radar shadow of one of the moons,' he muttered. 'We could just let the  _Prometheus'_ gun crews have a bit of target practice…'

'Jurisdiction,' Dan chided him gently. 'Humanitarian aid is one thing. We open fire, it's hell on the paperwork. But hey - go ahead, Hank. And since it's  _your_ idea…'

' _Your_  ship.' Douglas pointed out with a grin, his blue eyes twinkling with quiet humour. 'I only tagged along because the  _Epimetheus_ is still in dry dock after that last fuck up. Oh look, they've realised they can't land. Don't you just love the "what the fuck to do we do now" hover?'

'I love it even more when the pillocks lurking behind that wall realise they've got to walk right into our line of fire when they make a break for the car park their chauffeur's heading for near those gates…' Dan grinned at Douglas, the corners of his mouth curling up into his long moustaches.

'So do we raise a sweat and take 'em, or just sit and wait?'

'Rush 'em,' Dan replied, not needing to think about it. 'The younger one's damaged, and Lazarus hasn't already abandoned it; if he hasn't already, I don't think he will, and it'll slow him down.'

'Bugger all cover,' Douglas remarked blandly. 'Crappy surface.  _Soooo_ many trip hazards…'

'Then take it up with Health and Safety,' Dan quipped at him. 'And quit bitching to me about it.' He risked a quick look around the pillar. 'Probably discussing what  _we're_ up to…' he mused. 'You want to take the left or the right this time?'

'You take the right - cut 'em off - you'll be faster than I will. I'll flush them to you.'

'On three?' Douglas grinned at his friend.

'Depends - can you count that high, flyboy?' They shared a grin, then broke and ran from behind the cover of the plascrete column.

* * *

'Colonel fucking Ichimonji fucking Dantetsu…' Lazarus snarled as he snapped off another shot, that dinged above where the colonel was crouching. 'I never liked him. My father couldn't stand that side of the family - some big rift with his uncle - Ichimonji's father - years ago. Obstructive bastard - never knew his bloody place… the SDF was supposed to be under the aegis of Gaia Fleet Command but you'd never know it the way  _he_ operated. I almost had Harlock - the real one - years ago, but he forced my people to jump through hoops to operate in that sector, by which time…'

'Could we please  _focus_?' Pryder looked down to where his hands were pressed against his side, still bleeding pale pink blood through his fingers. 'The shuttle can't land. You're going to have to make a run for it.'

Lazarus looked down at him, almost apologetically. 'Sorry. Do you need me to try and seal that?'

Pryder shook his head. 'It's slowing, and that would take too long. You'd better go - I can cover you.'

'Not happening.' Lazarus knelt at his side. 'You're an annoying prick…'

'Hah!'

'...but you're one of the few people who's stayed by me because they wanted to, since…'

Pryder lifted a blood-stained hand and placed it on his arm' 'Stop… once I stop blushing, I'll start to think you care,' he said with a faint smile. 'Go. I got the data 'vised to the ship. No sense in both of us being caught or killed. Not that I'm looking forward to fending off that pair - have you seen the  _size_ of them?'

Lazarus snorted. 'You should have seen Harlock… I'd have gotten a crick in my neck even out of a hover chair trying to stare that bastard down.' He placed an arm around Pryder's waist and half pulled, half dragged him to his feet, ignoring his hiss of pain. 'I've already lost one person I cared about. I won't lose another. We both go.'

'Laz…'

'Set your internals to ignore the pain and use your energy reserves to boost speed. You'll crash hard when we reach the shuttle, but I can get you reset from there.'

'Reset…' Pryder murmured as he allowed Lazarus to help him to his feet and support him. 'Guess we don't merit  _healing_ anymore…'

'Complain about the functional immortality once we're off this rock,' Lazarus told him. 'Fucking Yama…' he muttered, almost spitting the words out. 'Every time that little prick tries to play hero, someone gets hurt. I wouldn't have given that blubbering screw-up command of a garbage hauler, but  _Harlock_ in his  _infinite_ wisdom thought it was a great idea to give him the single most powerful, indestructible battleship ever created and turn him loose without any oversight whatsoever? I should have just shot the lanky bastard and claimed he was trying to resist arrest…'

'Oh… I dunno… could have been worse,' Pryder muttered as he struggled to stand, all of his diagnostics complaining and flashing into the red on his HUD in front of his left retina before he turned it off. 'He could have given it to you...'

'Huh?' Lazarus, distracted by the hint of movement across the quad, where Douglas and Ichimonji were sheltering, barely spared him a glance.

'Nothing.' He called on his power reserves, already getting dangerously low, and straightened as his body responded. 'I'm good, so long as we're quick.'

Lazarus did spare a glance then, and swore under his breath. Pryder's face was almost grey in the dismal light, his light sandy hair plastered to his skull by the rain and looking almost black, making the contrast even more stark. 'I'll draw their fire - be ready to run like fuck.' With that he shot a blast into the air and ran from the scant cover they'd been using, straight towards the enemy position.

'Lazarus!' Pryder's frantic call was lost in the exchange of blaster fire. 'Runs in the entire fucking family…' he muttered angrily. Ignoring the red sensors flashing in front of his eye, he hefted his own pistol and charged out after Lazarus just as a loud rumbling noise split the air. His charge, he reflected a couple of seconds later, would have been a hell of a lot more heroic if he hadn't crashed to the ground, a blaster bolt whizzing over his head almost giving him a second parting, thanks to the earth suddenly picking that moment to heave and buck under his feet and send him sprawling.

* * *

Blaze was on his feet and running for the toiling SDF techs as soon as he heard the rumbling noise like a freighter moving through the atmosphere. He felt the earth start to shake even as he shouted to the techs, who were pulling a young ensign out of the rubble, her left leg bloodied and at an awkward angle. A dim red glow exposed by the engineers brightened as he hit the ground, cries of shock and pain all around, and Emeraldas somewhere close behind him calling his name.

The rumbling and the tremors dissipated quickly, and he lifted his head and coughed as he inhaled a large quantity of dust, a lot of which also seemed to be covering him. He sat up and looked around, seeing men and women on the ground, some unmoving, but a few getting unsteadily to their feet. The medtechs with the young ensign were next to their charge, looking groggy. 'Em?' he called out.

'Here.' She was scrambling over rubble to get to his side, but he waved her off. 'Check on the wounded, I'm fine. I'm going to look for dad…'

He left her calling out orders in her imperious manner, and scrambled over to where he'd seen the engineers working. Two were clambering to their feet, looking dusty and dazed. The senior of the two, his dark features almost beige from the dust, coughed and leaned on his colleague. 'Did you reach…?'

The engineer shook his head. 'Just got to the first three, and only pulled one out before it hit. They're under a forcefield I think, but it's getting weaker. They might still be under there, but the tunnel we made collapsed.'

'Get me a scan,' Blaze ordered as calmly as he could. 'I'll give you a hand.' For a moment he thought the SDF man would give him a hard time about taking orders from a civilian, but in the end he nodded, and limped back to where his equipment lay, the rugged equipment thankfully too tough to have taken much damage.

'Good job we make these to withstand almost anything,' the engineer said eventually, as Blaze helped his companion to sit down. 'We've still got lifesigns, but I've only got one clear, and one that's kind of a bit faint and off-kilter - I'm guessing that's the synth? It's under the strongest signal.' A pause. 'That shield's collapsing fast, but I think the quake opened up another hole over there…'

Blaze looked in the direction indicated by a bloodied finger, and saw the faint red glow pulsing erratically. 'Got it. Find me a medtech and a sapper or two who aren't bleeding too much.'

'Blaze? Blaze?' the insistent voice in his earpiece cut through in a hiss of static. 'Everyone okay back there? I'm on my way back…'

'Harlock? We've taken a few bumps and got some injuries among the SDF team. Dad's still in the rubble, under some kind of force field. It's failing, so I'm going in.'

'Blaze… wait for me. I've got more exp…'

'No time, Yama, even if you run back. Catch you later.' He killed the connection and peered into the dim light coming from under the rubble. 'Looks tight in there,' he murmured. Emeraldas, ghosting up to his side, knelt down carefully to take a closer look. An engineer - the big dusty guy - cleared his throat.

'Only that forcefield keeping it open, and it's too small for any of my guys.'

'I should be able to wriggle through…' Emeraldas reached out to touch the leading edge of the forcefield.

'Miss - I can't let you do that. Too dangerous.' The sapper was apologetic but firm.

'With respect, sergeant, I don't take orders from you. That's my uncle in there. And I think whatever's generating the forcefield will cover me.'

Blaze hauled her to her feet and practically frogmarched her out of harm's way. No easy task even for him, since she was five foot ten and no pushover. 'No way, Em. You might not take orders from anyone here, but I kind of love you to bits, and dad would kill me if anything happened to you.'

She shrugged off his restraining hand and glared at him, almost nose to nose. 'Duly noted, now get the fuck out of my way and let me get him out. You know I can do it.'

'Drag a six-foot guy out of a narrow, unstable tunnel?' The sapper spat out a gobbet of dusty phlegm. 'No offense, miss, but even one of my men would struggle under those conditions, and you're… well… you're…'

'A woman?' she finished for him. 'I'm Lar Metallian, sergeant. For over five hundred years the Queens have been bred for superior strength, intelligence, agility and…' she paused and gave him a slightly feral smirk 'a few other enhancements. Blaze here isn't questioning my ability…'

'Merely your survival instincts,' her cousin finished for her. He stared glumly at the shifting motes of dust spiralling in the red glow of the forcefield. 'Fine. Token resistance given. But for the love of Lar, Em, please be careful. I love dad, but you're family as well, remember?'

'Trust me.' She handed him her sidearm, ducked under his outstretched arm and knelt briefly at the opening, before she crawled into the narrow hole, her red leather-clad bottom briefly in the air before she slithered out of sight.

It might have been his imagination, but it looked to Blaze as though the force field bulged slightly to envelop her as she slid out of his line of sight.

* * *

Hope had bloomed, momentarily, until the earthquake had brought the tunnel down around their ears again, held at bay only by the motherball's forcefield. But now there was daylight ahead of him, and he murmured something encouraging to the little boy still sheltered under him. When the daylight was abruptly occluded, he swore under his breath.

'Uncle Rei? Is that any kind of language to use in front of small children?'

'Emeraldas?'

'Yep. I'm trying to reach you - can you put a hand out or something? You're not far from the opening, but I need to pull you out…'

'Wait.' he advised her firmly. 'Zephyr?' He felt the boy wriggle slightly. 'Can your motherball give me a bit of room so I can lift myself up for you to wriggle free?'

'She can,' Zephyr replied in a sad voice. 'But I can't just leave her…'

'She's doing her best to save us, kiddo, and we'll do our best to get her out as well, but she'll want you safe.' The field pulsed slightly and he felt the tingling sensation of the forcefield lessen as it expanded slightly. 'Okay. Em? Grab the boy first. Zephyr, out you go, nice and slow…'

It was a tighter fit than he'd have liked, but as soon as the boy had his arms free, Emeraldas didn't waste any time pulling him free. With a sigh of relief, Zero lowered himself back to the ground. A few minutes later his niece's strong fingers closed around his outstretched arm, and with some wriggling and crawling to help her, he was pulled slowly but surely out into the grey light, bleeding from several cuts and grazes but safe and sound with his son wrapping a blanket around his shoulders and Zephyr clinging to him as tough his life depended on it.

With the hole now wider, one of the sappers was already diving back down the hole to try and reach the SDF team. Working quickly if incurring the wrath of the med techs for their technique, both SDF members were soon pulled free. Not a moment too soon, as the light from the forcefield began to dim rapidly. Zephyr tried to lunge out of Zero's restraining arms. 'Mother!'

Blaze reacted faster than Emeraldas, beating her to the collapsing rubble by a second, reaching in and rolling the ball towards him. Emeraldas hauled him out by his ankles just as the forcefield collapsed, and the tunnel with it. Coughing and spluttering he rolled out of the way clutching the now dormant ball to his chest. 'Got it!'

Zephyr, released from Zero's protective hold, ran to him and took it from him, clutching it to his own small bare chest and crying. A little awkwardly at first, and then with rather more feeling, Blaze placed an arm around the little boy and pulled him into a hug and gave his father a helpless look, but since Zero's glasses had been another casualty of the blast, it went unnoticed. Zephyr's quiet sobs however didn't, and Zero gently blocked the fluttering medtech hovering over him and made his way carefully over to his family.

'Can you fix her?' Zephyr held out the now-dark motherball towards Zero, no longer the cocky street urchin, just a small, battered and bruised little boy. Zero placed an arm around his thin shoulders.

'We've got people who can try. I promise you that. She sacrificed herself to save both of us, and they tell me the SDF guys they pulled out will make it as well, thanks to her holding the forcefield over all of us. She didn't have to do that. It was bravely done.'

Zephyr looked up into his eyes - this close, Zero could see reasonably clearly. Tears still threatened to fall, but with his free hand he brushed at them angrily and just nodded his acceptance.

'Looks like mom's gonna have to make room for another one,' Blaze said quietly to Emeraldas, with a mock sigh. 'Bloody good job our place is bigger than it looks…' He looked around. 'I was about to ask where Harlock had gotten to, but I see he's been collecting strays as well…'

'Let me guess,' Zero drawled as he stood up, Zephyr clinging to his neck, the motherball cradled against his chest. 'Two young girls, one of them from Gamilas, and a baby?'

Emeraldas stared in the direction Blaze was waving his hand in and sighed. 'Partly right. Six girls and two boys, all younger than me, two with babes in arms and three children smaller than this one.'

'Guess there were more in that squat than we thought,' Zero murmured. He smiled as Harlock approached at the head of his group of refugees and handed them over to the bustling SDF medtechs. In the distance he could just make out the sounds of more shuttles coming in fast and low, heading for the fields not far out of the town, as the Thieves' transports arrived.

'Can't save them all,' Harlock replied bleakly, as he took in the scene. The sappers were carrying out the last of the bodies from under the rubble that had almost become Zero's tomb. 'But I figured I could talk a couple of them into coming along…' He looked around with a frown. 'Where the hell are those two walking mountains? Did they get Lazarus and his sidekick?'

'Captain Harlock?' one of the SDF aides had lifted his head from his scanner briefly on hearing the question. 'They're on the other side of the compound still. Haven't heard from them since the Earthquake hit. We were just about to…'

Harlock was already off at a run, Blaze only a second behind him. At Zero's long suffering and frustrated sigh, Emeraldas just smirked. 'Told you you should just suck it up and get the surgery. Or contacts…'

'Emeraldas?'

'Yes, uncle?'

'Nobody likes a smart-arse.'

* * *

Being thrown around by earthquakes was one thing, Lazarus thought as he picked himself off the ground. Being the recipient of a high tackle from six foot four of solid muscle and bone wrapped in an SPG armoured uniform was just adding insult to injury. And the bastard had a right cross that rang even  _his_ solid-state nano-core storage…

However, like his detested younger brother, Ichimonji was something of a straight arrow, and seemed to labour under the misapprehension that combat had  _rules_. Something that a solid kick to the balls and a rabbit punch to the kidneys soon put paid to. Lazarus stumbled to his feet and added a kick to the felled colonel's midsection for good measure. With any luck the bastard would be pissing blood for a week… He would have added a kick to the head just for pure spite, but a blaster bolt  _sszapping_ over his head reminded him that in the SDF, walking tree trunks came in pairs… He ducked and returned fire, then cursed as he saw Pryder on the ground, right in the path of the blond behemoth striding towards him. 'Shit.' He leaned down and stuck his pistol in Ichimonji's ear. 'Colonel Douglas?' he called out. 'You might want to drop your weapon, if you don't want to see what passes for brains in your friend's head decorate the paving.'

'I could say the same,' Douglas called back, aiming at the prone Pryder. 'Bit of a standoff.'

Lazarus shrugged. 'Go ahead. Plenty more where that came from. But Ichimonji won't be far behind if you do. Your call, Douglas.'

His mouth quirked into a smug smirk when Douglas sighed, laid down his pistol and stepped away from Pryder with his hands behind his head as though lacing his fingers. He sighed in his own turn. 'Douglas - over your head please, palms upwards, fingers laced - do you think I was born yesterday?' Those icy blue eyes gave him a venomous glare, but he ignored it. 'Heroes… you're so predictable,' he sneered. 'Pryder? Are you planning on lying there all day?'

Pryder groaned and struggled to his feet. He did at least have the presence of mind to pick up Douglas' weapon and keep it pointed at the blond hulk whilst he backed towards Lazarus, stumbling slightly on the uneven ground.

'The moment you two turn your backs we'll be after you,' Douglas shouted. 'Just how far do you think you'll get?'

Lazarus smirked again. 'Pretty damn far, actually,' he called back. 'It's a tough call - saving your friend, or catching a couple of bad guys, isn't it? But I'm betting you're one of the good guys, so…' and slowly, deliberately, he drew a bead and shot Ichimonji in the upper leg. 'Now run like fuck!' he ordered Pryder, and set off at a blistering pace. Behind him, he could hear Douglas swearing like a trooper and calling for a medic in between screaming his friend's name. 'You have to love a sweet bromance,' he told Pryder as they ran. 'Reliable as fuck in keeping annoyances like those two off your back.'

'Did you hit anything vital?' Pryder asked.

'Who cares?'

'Point.'

They ran, Pryder obviously running on fumes, so that by the time the shuttle came into view, hovering about a foot off the ground, Lazarus had to lift him and practically throw him through the airlock. He was seconds away from swinging a leg over into the machine himself, when a blaster bolt hit the beading to his left, almost causing him to lose his balance. A mechanical arm grabbed his and hauled him on board, and he just had time to turn and see his brother - and one of the young turks from Metabloody who'd helped capture him - firing impotently at the shuttle. He raised a hand in mock salute as the shuttle leaped for the sky. 'Nice try,' he called out. 'Better luck next time!' The door closed and he sat down hard on the deck, and placed his head between his knees. 'Fuck. That was too close…'

'Plenty more where that came from?' he heard Pryder remark dryly.

'Just tell yourself I was bluffing,' Lazarus replied wearily.

'Asshole.'

'Runs in the family. Now for fuck's sake switch off until we reach the ship. I wouldn't count on Zera Sender letting me reboot you if you lose this body.'

'Oh… I don't know…' Pryder smirked as he lay lengthwise across the seats against the far hull. 'We didn't get a working "motherball" or the kid, but we did get the data from the whole damn experiment.'

'And for that, maybe he won't scrap the pair of us,' Lazarus replied dryly. 'You know… I'm starting to think this was a bad deal.'

Pryder barely had the strength to lever himself up until he could stare at his friend. 'Well, it's about time. Why don't we just take what we have and set up…'

Lazarus shook his head slowly, a spectacularly calculating smile spreading over his face. 'Not so fast. Zera Sender still has something I want.' He stood up, albeit a little shakily and made his way towards the cockpit. 'Rendezvous with the ship,' he told the dialhead behind the controls. 'Have them prepare a jump to Mars.'

'Are you mental?' Pryder almost yelped out the question. 'I thought…'

'He has something of mine, and I plan to take it back,' Lazarus said quietly, a gleam in his single grey-violet eye. 'After that, I'm sick and tired of being that AI's lapdog.'

Pryder fell back onto the seats with a groan. 'You  _are_ crazy… and you're going to get us both killed, you know that?'

'Yes, yes,' Lazarus waved him off. He smiled coldly. 'But not today, Pryder. Not today.'

He sat down in the empty co-pilot's seat and leaned back against the headrest, closing his eye.

* * *

'I cannot believe you two let him get away!' Harlock, normally one of the most even tempered of men, paced up and down in front of the stretcher the SDF med techs had loaded Ichimonji onto and that Henry Douglas was hovering next to like a hen over her chick. 'We almost had him, and you just let him steamroller over the pair of you?'

'You try getting up after taking a kick to the balls that almost replaced your tonsils,' Ichimonji replied hoarsely from his stretcher. 'The bastard blindsided me. Then shot me in the fucking leg...'

''Did you never listen when I told you he was a devious, treacherous, backstabbing little shit who doesn't play by the rules? I mean, my mouth was flapping, sound was coming out…' Harlock turned his back on them and folded his arms. 'Amateur hour… I should have gone after him myself, but I thought: nooo, they're professionals… they'll be able to handle it. One job. You had one fucking job…' Hank Douglas opened his mouth, caught sight of the look in Harlock's eyes, and shut it again with a snap, and a sideways look at his old friend. Who shrugged painfully and rolled his eyes. 'Brothers…' he mouthed.

Blaze risked approaching the somewhat cranky pilot with the rest of the bad news. 'With the increasing traffic coming to the aid of the planet's population, the ship they were on managed to evade both the  _Prometheus_ and the  _Futatsuboshi_. Hannibal gave chase but the bastards went to IN-SKIP before he could get a weapons lock. And he says if they're going to Mars, you can go get him yourself.'

Harlock sighed, and ran a hand through his dusty, tangled hair, pulling a face when his fingers got stuck in a knot. 'Tempting.' He watched idly as Ichimonji was stretchered onto a waiting transport. 'Bugger. Maybe I shouldn't have been so hard on him…'

'Nah. He's a big boy, he can take it. Truth is those two cocky jokers did take their eye off the ball. Which is why I suspect neither of them put up a fight with you.' he draped an arm around Harlock's shoulders. 'C'mon. Dad's going up in the next transport, and there's not much more we can do down here. That little boy you rescued is in a bad way, so dad wants to run him back to Deathshadow Island, if that's okay with you?'

'He has to ask?' Harlock replied wearily. 'Sure. He's right, we've got better facilities there for handling exotic matter. Ask Marin to send a message to the Arcadia - have them meet us there. I'll need the brains trust - Yattaran, Mimay, Doc, Maji, Tochiro… And that mech doctor of yours will come in handy.' He looked around at the ruined buildings, the grey skies, still drizzling miserably onto the handful of people they'd so far been able to convince to abandon their doomed world. 'You know, that device… Boreas… it -  _she -_ sacrificed herself to save Zephyr, and Zero, and to give us a fighting chance to get people off this planet. I'm not sure that's something we can ever repay.'

'If anyone can get her working again, your people can,' Blaze said quietly. 'If not… well, her little boy has a chance, right?'

'Right,' Harlock replied absently. When Blaze waited him out, he finally added, 'Boreas was created as a copy of a human, cruelly abused, dismantled, turned into something akin to one of Promethium's machine parts, but had more humanity in her actions than my brother displayed even when he was still sodding human. Granted a second chance, he's still an asshole. But Zephyr and Boreas…' he looked over to where the boy - still cradling the inert ball in his arms, dwarfed by Harlock's oversized jacket. 'We've got a galaxy full of people desperate to give up their humanity for the illusion of eternity, yet…'

'Androids who'd give up eternity to protect those they love…?' Blaze shifted his arm so that he could give Harlock a gentle push in the small of his back. 'Beats me. I'm just a rich kid with too much time on his hands and you're a pirate - what do we know? C'mon, hotshot. You really need a shower and a shave. I'll buy you a coffee…'

'Since when did Mal start charging for his coffee?' He allowed Blaze to chivvy him along until they reached the spot where Zero was standing next to Zephyr. 'Coming?' he asked with studied nonchalance. Zephyr looked up at him miserably.

'Where?'

'Home,' Zero said softly, offering the boy a hand. 'That is, if that's what you want?'

Zephyr looked at the ball in his arms as though waiting for her guidance. Hugging it close with one arm, he held out the other for Zero to take, and the three men and the boy walked gingerly across the rubble to where the  _Futatsoboshi's_ shuttle waited.

* * *

_Epilogue - 6 weeks later._

Outside the door of a ramshackle little shop that advertised itself above the door in faded letters as "Sanshoku Ramen", a tall woman brushed her long auburn hair out of her face and squinted against the fading light of Tabito's unenthusiastic sun. Several children ran past laughing and shouting, chasing a football, and she smiled at the sight. 'Daisuke! Rei!' she called out. 'Dinner!'

'Coming mom!' Two boys broke away from the pack and hurtled back towards her, decelerating at an impressive rate. The eldest looked to be about eight, dark haired and blue eyed, the younger had her colouring and was about six. 'Hands!' she called out as they charged past her barely stopping for quick hugs. She smiled, about to follow them in, when a figure in tan coveralls leaning against a nearby lamp-post pushed himself upright and sauntered over.

'I hope you made plenty - with Blaze and Marin back as well, that's a lot of healthy appetites…'

In answer she flicked the teatowel she held in her hand at him, which he dodged with a grin. 'Greedy. You'll get your share. The babies and Kanna are in bed, if you want to just put your head round the door?'

Zero dropped a kiss on her forehead, hardly needing to stoop as she was almost the same height. 'I hope I'll get more than that later…' he murmured. She laughed.

'Really? Dinner made by a princess of Lar Metal not enough for you?' she teased. In reply, he kissed her soundly, ignoring her muffled squeaks regarding onlookers - most of whom he knew from long experience would simply cheer him on. When they came up for air he held her almost casually, one arm around her waist as she leaned back against him, a brief pause before all hell broke loose inside. 'He's fitting in surprisingly well,' Selen said eventually. 'I wasn't too sure he'd fit in, never having been around other children…'

'Round here one more traumatised little boy with social issues isn't uncommon,' Zero replied sadly, watching the children as they played further down the street, in the pool of light cast by the solitary, flickering street lamp at the end of the small dirt road. 'But thank you, for trusting me. For trusting him. I know it's not easy…'

She turned so that she could look at him, and raised a hand to his cheek. 'They tried to create a weapon, a tool, and made it a little boy who couldn't grow up. It's not about trust. It's about what's right, and second chances. It's what you, and I… Harlock and Kei… it's why we made this place a haven.' She sent a brief look back over her shoulder to where her eldest sons were shepherding their younger brother and their new adopted brother into their chairs and trying to make them sit still, with all the success of an attempt to herd cats. 'What did Mimay and Tochiro say about his body? You said there was still some work…?'

'They've got the bugs out, and switched the growth programme back on,' Zero told her quietly, 'No more zapping lightning for a while, though. Without the motherball acting as a buffer there's no way his cells can handle that kind of power until he grows up.'

'About that…' she said in her soft voice.

'Boreas was badly damaged, but Harlock says Tochiro's got some ideas on that front. Whether or not anything of her core personality survived or not, they won't know for a while. Messing around with zero point energy like that… even with Nibelung assistance they were playing god in the dark, those scientists. But Mimay's confident they can adjust the system to use dark matter. It'll just be a long slow process; they daren't rush it, not given the potential for disaster in manipulating either flavour of primal energy…' He turned then himself, to watch the chaos unfolding in the dining area, and smiled when Rei's eyes met his, before the boy went back to arguing with Blaze over a rice ball, which he then handed to Daisuke.

' _Zephyr's a bit too noticeable as a name,' Zero had said, sitting beside the bed where the little boy lay, covered in bandages with Harlock's acerbic medic hovering nearby, tugging on her ponytail with one hand with a large glass of whiskey in the other. 'But I guess we could make it work if that's what you want…?'_

' _It's just a code name,' Zephyr had replied. 'But I kinda like being a Zero…'_

' _Tough, kiddo, I'm using it.'_

' _What about "Rei"?' Luna had asked, in between swigs. 'Means the same thing, and you hardly use it. If you're gonna pass this bean off as one of yours it'd fit…'_

Zero's smile widened as he watched. 'Could be an interesting few years,' he said lightly, as he followed Selen into the shop and closed the door behind them.

* * *

_Author's note:_

_Very loosely inspired by both the 1975 manga "Diver Zero", and the appearances of Zero in "Arei no Kagami" and the recently finished Dimensional Voyage manga, the latter of which confirmed finally that the two androids called Zero with a major chip on their shoulder re: the despicable species known as "humans",_ are,  _in fact, the same character, and that the little android boy of the earlier manga seems to be capable of growing up into a rather handsome young man!_

_Rei (Zephyr) does show up again briefly in "Corpse Flower" - sans (until he grows up a bit more…) the ability to shoot lightning bolts from his hands. And he will have a part to play in the endgame, "Et in Arcadia, Ego". When I finally finish the research needed to write it…!_

_Dantetsu and Henry courtesy of Danguard Ace (well, the animated version!)_

_Pryder lifted shamelessly from Galaxy Express 999 where he's pretty much just another misguided or unlucky encounter of the week. I need a musician for a planned tale further down the line!_


End file.
